Abstract
Studies on post-colonial issues like diaspora, immigration, and cultural hybridity have been prioritized by a number of psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers among the various literary movements that have found their way into the Contemporary English Literary Canon. Due to the marginalization of non-western art, Homi Bhabha is credited with coining the term “Third Space” in order to describe the developing crevice between clashing cultures which in turn gives rise to new hybrid identities and center-periphery dichotomy. This dichotomy has resulted from the western domination by universalism which creates fragile relations between the center and the peripheries; one of power and authority rather than geography. A third space or hybrid realization is nurtured in migrants who are frequently exposed to other cultures. In other words, this in-between space has led to the consequences of alienation, cosmopolitanism, diaspora, displacement, hybridity and transnationalism. Hence, this research investigates how the novelist Salman Rushdie has decentered the dominant canon by advocating a hybrid world, in which diversity and heterogeneity are passionately cherished. The paper highlights how The Satanic Verses is clearly dedicated to the ideas of center-periphery dichotomy and third space by resisting the chimera of plausibility and opposing calls for homogeneity. Rushdie puts his protagonists in a difficult diasporic condition as a background for his suggestion that no other option rather than hybridity can cure the cultural wound and decrease the gap between the center and the margin, that hybridity is the perfect option for the disoriented diasporic states.
Presenters
Riham YassinAssistant Lecturer, Faculty of Linguistics and Translation - English Department, Badr University in Cairo, Egypt
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Civic, Political, and Community Studies
KEYWORDS
THIRD-SPACE, MARGINALIZATION, HYBRIDITY, DIASPORA, POSTCOLONIAL-IDENTITY, COLONIZATION
