Thesis title: The Postcolonial Novel and the Guilt of Betrayal
Supervisor: Dr. Patrick Hayes
Doctoral Research: My research explores the idea that novel-writing is both a self-interested project and a political/journalistic form of reportage to the world. I consider the novels of E.M. Forster, V.S. Naipaul, Younghill Kang, and Hisham Matar, where writers navigate conflicting cultural or political allegiances to mother tongue, family, nation, empire, art, and friendship. I also examine the history of the concept of “disinterestedness” (featured in the works of Kant, Matthew Arnold, and Benedict Anderson), which can counter with the guilt of forsaking such loyalties and offer us a way to compare the nature and intensity of our attachment given to nations, peoples, and ideas.
Research Interests: political neutrality, disinterestedness, world literatures, modernism, aesthetics