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Diasporic Relocations of Home in the Fiction of Gao Xingjian Farida Chishti Roll No. 13PHDENG01 2013-18 Supervisor: Dr. Aamir Aziz Assistant Professor Submission date: 07 July, 2018 Thesis submitted to the Department of English Language and Literature, University of the Punjab in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature Department of English Language & Literature University of the Punjab, Lahore 2018 Diasporic Relocations of Home in the Fiction of Gao Xingjian PhD Dissertation Farida Chishti Department of English Language & Literature University of the Punjab, Lahore 2018 Author’s Declaration I, Farida Chishti, hereby declare that the PhD thesis titled “Diasporic Relocations of Home in the Fiction of Gao Xingjian” is the result of my personal research, and it is not being submitted concurrently in part or whole to any other university for any other degree whatsoever either in or outside the country. Farida Chishti PhD Scholar Roll No. 13PHDENG01 Session: 2013-18 Department of English University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan 07 July, 2018 Declaration Certificate This is to certify that the research work in this dissertation submitted by Ms. Farida Chishti to the Department of English, University of the Punjab, Lahore has been carried out under my direct supervision. I have personally gone through the raw data and certify the correctness and authenticity of all results recorded therein. I further certify that the thesis data have not been used in part or full, in a manuscript already submitted or in process of submission in partial/complete fulfillment of the award of any other degree from any other institution at home or abroad. I also certify that the enclosed manuscript has been prepared under my supervision and I declare its evaluation for the award of PhD degree through the official procedure of the University. Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti i Abstract With the key objective to highlight the peace initiative encoded in the fiction of Gao Xingjian, this study investigates the topos of home and diaspora in the ambiguous context of the contemporary world. Where global capitalism has dissolved the boundaries between peoples and places, there exclusionary politics of ‘home’ has re-erected them as in recent world events like Donald Trump’s election call of ‘America first’, or the ‘Brexit’, or the rise of Hindu nationalists to power in India. That’s why it becomes all the more important to highlight in Gao’s works the possibility of a home broad enough to include and accommodate others–be they of gender, class, race, class, culture or community. This is an entirely new and original perspective with which to access Gao’s diaspora fiction. To organize the core data collected from both the novels and the collection of short stories by Gao, I have built up my argument on the basis of three broad questions concerning the location of home, what forces the subjects out, and its alternative relocations elsewhere. Drawing on an eclectic theoretical template that includes the theories of diaspora, exile, home, diasporic subjectivity, nomadism, and trans-culturalism, my study has taken up the trajectory of subjects-in-becoming who having been driven out of China to the West by socio-political forces at home ultimately land in a self-expansive internal space which necessitates thinking without home and its politics of inclusion and exclusion. Passing from cultural filiation to affiliation, such a subject is willing to enter in a dialogue with contending forces both within and without. At home everywhere, he is at peace with himself as well as the world around through his ability to surmount his own impulse to hegemonise, hate or inflict violence on others. Working under a qualitative research design and critical approach, I have used close reading of the texts as major source of data collection, and for analyzing them a set of Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti ii variegated techniques like textual, formal, critical, Bakhtinian, Foucauldian and Deleuzian discourse analyses to generate meaning. The structural division of the research into six chapters has disciplined and organized the research process. After introducing the research area and placing it in a theoretical context, the study interrogates the traditional construct of home as pure and fixed, and reveals it instead as a problematic site where oppressive forces in society and state act as major push factors for exile’s dislocation. As a perpetual minority inhabiting the interstices of different cultures, east or west, the subject now relocates home in inter-subjective and transcultural negotiations. The conclusion through its interdisciplinary focus on changing contours of global culture demonstrates how even minor acts of inclusivity at subjective level may serve as vital diplomacy tools for reducing tension across people(s) and nations. Thus the present research in its action orientation anticipates a qualitative change in our psyche, as well as a vibrant debate in humanities, and social and cultural sciences regarding how to make this world a better and a safer place to live in. Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti iii Acknowledgements I owe my deep gratitude to the Department of English Language and Literature, the University of the Punjab, Lahore for having provided me with the opportunity to pursue higher studies. My special thanks to the chairperson, Dr. Amra Raza who took a generous view of the frail signs of scholarship I displayed in the beginning, and allowed me to refurbish my knowledge as well as research skills under her superb class management. Her trust in my potential acted as a push button to keep me going in spite of the difficulties involved. The extensive coverage of theory in the curriculum, the stimulating environment in and outside the classroom, the strict watch on quality, the intensive presentations, the grilling question-answer sessions that goaded one to self- critique, reflect, re-vision and look for alternative routes, all pushed me on to undertake the ambitious project and to carry it to completion well within the stipulated time. I thank Dr. Raza for all these. In the Department, I had the opportunity to benefit from some of the best schooling available in theoretical orientation of scholars. I find myself fortunate for having Dr. Rizwan Akhtar as a most serious, competent and committed source person in the field. To him I owe my understanding of all major theorists including Bakhtin and Foucault, to name just two. It is teachers like Dr. Akhtar who continue the tradition of quality education which the English Department has always been known for since the times of Madam Shaista Sonnu Sirajuddin. No less am I grateful to my adviser Dr. Aamir Aziz for having been at my back, always encouraging and helpful, particularly in the darkest hours which were not infrequent. I admire the promptness with which he would make an important research material available at the shortest notice. He had the patience to listen to my point of view. His grant for intellectual Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti iv freedom gave me confidence to explore things on my own; his prying questions during our discussions helped me avoid detours and get back to the right track in argument. I am grateful to him for always being available whenever I needed him. Special thanks to Dr. Babar Jamil for the time he took out of his busy schedule to painstakingly go through the initial research manuscript and give valuable feedback. In the end I express my thanks to the person without whose support I could never have been able to undertake this project, let alone completing it. It is my worthy principal Professor Farzana Shaheen, whose love for learning and research coupled with her dedication as an educationist served an extra impetus for me to seriously pursue my goal. As much am I indebted to my friends and colleagues as to the members of my family for their encouragement, and superhuman patience in bearing with my occasional blackouts or absent-mindedness on different occasions academic or social. I dedicate this thesis to the memory of both my parents whose confidence in their daughter outlived them to act as a voltage stabilizer to protect me against possible power failure. Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti v Contents Page No. Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Table of contents v List of diagrams vii Chapter 1: The Research Preamble 1 Argument 1 Gao Xingjian: the diasporic profile 2 Rationale for present research 6 Theoretical cover 10 Conceptual genealogy of home 11 Home in China 12 Chinese culture and colonial intervention 15 Chinese diaspora 19 Chinese diaspora literature and Gao 20 Present research focus 27 Chapter 2: The Theoretical Direction 33 The critical reception 33 Hiatus in response 40 Theoretical template: home in diaspora 41 The displaced subjectivities 50 Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti vi The deterritorialised subject 52 The progression of argument 59 Key research questions 62 Main objectives 64 Significance and scope of research 68 Research methodology 72 Chapter 3: The Problematics of Home in Exile 74 (a) Location of exile’s home 80 (b) The myth of return 95 (c) Home in exile and exile at home 99 (d) Dialogism of the third space 114 Chapter 4: Exile’s Dislocation from Home 118 Territorial imperatives at home: exile under arrest 123 (a) Societal surveillance 123 (b) Political panopticon 130 (c) Flight as deterritorialisation of the subject 148 Chapter 5: Relocating Home in a Nomadic Space 157 Shifting politics of location 166 (a) The subject in becoming: Soul Mountain 166 (b) From minority to becoming-minoritarian: One Man’s Bible 183 (c) Landing in a de-politicised space 202 Chapter 6: Home in transcultural negotiations 206 ‘A great leap forward’ 206 ‘At home in the world’ 210 Summing up 219 Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti vii Works Cited 224 Works Consulted 243 Diasporic Relocations of Home Chishti viii List of diagrams Page No.