Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
9-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Program
Comparative Literature
Advisor
Jerry Carlson
Subject Categories
Comparative Literature | Film and Media Studies | Translation Studies
Keywords
Translation, Uncanny Doubles
Abstract
This thesis traces the uncanny double as an expression of the figural logics of “translation,” enacting its dynamics across time, place, medium, and language. The main preoccupations and methodology of this thesis are the movements between distinct times and places enacted in the crossings of translation. In those moments of crossing, visions and traces of doubleness arise in the texts; through close reading and juxtaposition, I analyze the effects of these figures within the texts and upon other texts. My work here is to use the uncanny dynamics of translation as a frame to activate the texts, films, and images, like a vision caught as it crosses between two mirrors.
Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s theorization of the unheimlich and Antonio Benítez-Rojo’s writing on tropisms and repetitions, each chapter stands as an exercise in theme and variations on doubles. Jorge Luis Borges and Tayeb Salih are read as unfamiliar doubles in Chapter 1: they would not necessarily recognize each other, and yet there are strange resemblances, places where they intersect and overlap. In Chapter 2, I explore a similar juxtaposition between film and literature in the Philippines and Cuba, looking at moments where works reread and repeat each other, bending narrative time and space. Is Juan of the Dead a reinterpretation of Memories of Underdevelopment? How does doubleness function across the works of Gina Apostol and Nick Joaquin? Lastly, in Chapter 3, I examine doubling through the lens of travesti and disidentification, looking at how repetition in Almódovar’s Bad Education and The Law of Desire recycle and queer the forms and narrative modes of fascist Spain, using José Esteban Muñoz’s work on disidentification. Here, similar works that repeat one director’s preoccupations enact surprisingly different results, allowing for multiple conflicting endings to emerge, carrying the text into a loop of ceaseless ambiguity.
Recommended Citation
Lloyd, Emma R., "Between Mirrors: Comparative Visions of Uncanny Doubles" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6026