Undergraduate Academic Work

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https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/111462

Collection of unpublished undergraduate work.

Submissions are sponsored by Faculty for inclusion. For details on how to submit Undergraduate Academic Work see: Undergraduate Work in PRISM

For more information about University of Calgary Undergraduate Programs see: Undergraduate Degree Programs

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Browsing Undergraduate Academic Work by Department "English"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Celluloid Thirsty
    (2020-11-02) Bews, Jacob; van Herk, Aritha
    In the exegesis, Bews argues that cities have and act as paratexts which define their borders and interpretations by residents. Situated knowledge and research creation, then, become valuable methods for decoding and exploring the implications of those city-paratexts. This is followed by the novella "Celluloid Thirsty," about a film critic tasked with writing a script by a oil-drinking, cannibalistic cowboy.
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    Dust, Oil, and Swarm-Selves: Re-Imagining Middle Eastern Subjectivity with Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia
    (2020-05) Ali, Rukhsar; Camara, Anthony
    For many years, the Middle East and its cultural and political contexts have been examined from solely Western epistemological standpoints, creating an orientalist view of the Middle East which fails to capture the complexity of identity and sentience formation in the region. Previous scholarship uses Western methodologies such as Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage to understand this development, providing an incomplete and essentialized explanation of identity formation. This paper uses Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia as the theoretical basis for exploration of the recurring “fragmented” identity motif in Middle Eastern science fiction/horror literature. Cyclonopedia does not claim that there is an “authentic” Middle East to be discovered, as this is also a form of orientalism; instead, it builds on Western thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Sigmund Freud, and Nick Land to form a creative hybrid methodology of Western and Eastern epistemologies called Hidden Writing. Negarestani’s methodology locates points of contention in the creative texts (Peter Watt’s “Malak”, Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) highlighting connections inter and intra-textually that emphasize the shortcomings of Western conceptions of identity formation, especially through the exploration of different forms of sentience across the texts. The growing technology of artificial intelligence and Negarestani’s development of Hidden Writing highlight different possible forms of sentience that push back against a solely Western anthropocentric view of sentience and subjectivity.
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    Loonie Calls
    (2020-06) Chua, Christian Philip; van Herk, Aritha
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    Louise Ho and the Third Space: Identity Formation in Postcolonial Hong Kong English Literature
    (2020-07-06) Lau, Isabella; Joseph, Clara; Wiens, Jason
    This project intends to explore the issue of identity formation in postcolonial Hong Kong with a focus on Homi Bhabha’s theory of the third space and Edward Said’s theory of the intellectual as exile, in conjunction with the poems “Flags and Flowers,” and “Migratory” by Louise Ho. By analysing these poems, this project considers an important instance of how citizens of postcolonial Hong Kong attempt to reclaim their identity in the face of opposing powers – Britain and China. The study will engage with Bhabha’s and Said’s theories to explore the ways in which Louise Ho utilizes related concepts to construct a local identity for Hong Kong. The idea that Hong Kong is a place of exiles populated by people who live “at the edge of things and between places” is a common theme of literary texts in the handover period. Due to this common belief of Hong Kong as a place of exile, hence vulnerable to the colonial and native sovereign’s project of identity reconstruction, most texts in the handover period all demonstrate concerns and anxieties over Hong Kong’s cultural and linguistic autonomy, as well as the fear of a “homogenizing renationalization”. From such a perspective, Hong Kong presents an identity crisis that is often overlooked by postcolonial scholars: the struggle between identifying oneself with the former colonizer and the present sovereign within the native culture itself. While the idea that Hong Kong is a city of exiles constitutes one of the major themes of Louise Ho’s poems, Ho, however, suggests that it is exactly this very being of “difference,” that marks the local distinctive identity of Hong Kong. Foregrounding these common themes as the basis of Ho’s poems, this study argues that by showing the liminality of Hong Kong’s cultural identification – Not quite British, not quite Chinese – Louise Ho proposes the concept of the third space as a possible means for the formation of Hong Kong’s own local identity. To prove my thesis, I shall first begin with a literary review of Hong Kong literature from the handover period. Then, I will draw upon relevant discussions of Edward Said’s discourse of intellectual exile, in conjunction with one of the selected poems “Migratory”; I will then discuss Homi Bhabha’s theory of the third space and its intersection with the poem “Flags and Flowers”; Lastly, I will provide a close analysis of Ho’s poems with particular focus on the ways in which the poems call attention to the fluidity and multiplicity of identity in Post-Handover Hong Kong, as well as the ways in which Ho foregrounds the theoretical approaches of intellectual exile and the third space as possible means for reclaiming and reconstructing Hong Kong’s cultural identity.