Learning Performances of Dislocation, Receptivity and Hybridity in Women's Utopian Writing

The deconstructionist and revisionist gestures of this project also address the metaphysics of purity and imprintability that have been dominating educational notions of childhood. In particular, I explore two arguments: (a) The understanding of utopian writing as the literary supplement of political philosophy fails to see how Western questions about the good life, the good society, and good education have been founded on the colonial supplement of an imaginary, natural and amorphous, place available for 'cultivation' and 'acculturation' outside the 'home', as well as on the imaginary of an impressionable child within the 'home'. (b) Excluded from authoritative discourses in educational theory, women writers have been using the literary convention of utopian travels to re-stage feminist passages (e.g., passages between the private and the public) as educational passages, and, at the same time, using literary figures of transformation from science fiction and travel writing to rethink educational goals and practices, reinvent utopian conventions, and politicize and deconstruct the educational imaginary (e.g., the child as receptive receptacle and woman as fertile receptacle).

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Gregoriou, Zelia

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kal Alston

• Literature, Romance

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9912244

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/80277