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IDENTITY, HOME, AND LOSS IN GORAN VOJNOVIĆ’S ČEFURJI RAUS! (SOUTHERN SCUM GO HOME!) by Špela Grašič M.A., The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus 2014 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) August 2014 © Špela Grašič, 2014 Abstract “Identity, home, and loss in Goran Vojnović’s Čefurji raus!” examines how popular Slovene writer Goran Vojnović’s 2008 novel Čefurji Raus! (trans. 2012) reconceptualizes the self/other divide between the relatively homogeneous Slovene majority and diasporic Fužine community, which lives in Slovenia’s capital city Ljubljana and is comprised largely of immigrants from the former republics of the ex-Yugoslavia. More specifically, this work explores how the two communities exist in a continuum of apparatuses, for example discursive, institutional, and state apparatuses, that are themselves encompassed by an overarching trauma apparatus. Here, the paper discusses etymological and discursive references to past traumatic historical events as well as the narrator-protagonist’s Marko Đorđić direct references to the more recent Yugoslav Wars. The paper then goes on to adress common Slovene responses to the novel. The paper concludes by suggesting that the novel is successful in helping individuals and communities work through stereotypes and xenophobia linked to trauma because, as a non-didactic or confrontational tool, the novel can serve to gently invite the reader into an experience of discomfort and uncertainty he or she may be unwilling or unable to engage with directly. In this way, the paper argues, Vojnović’s novel plays or can be used to play a key role in helping the Slovene communities work through, or perhaps more accurately, acknowledge and “sit with” their feelings of pain, discomfort, mistrust, and hate. Vojnović’s novel produces enough discomfort to cause reflection, but not enough to alienate or directly blame the reader. In doing so, Čefurji Raus! destabilizes the emotional response to the other constructed by our prejudices and ideology. ii Preface This dissertation is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Špela Grašič. Also worth noting, unless otherwise indicated all translations from Slovene to English are the author’s own. iii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ..................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ vi Dedication .............................................................................................................................. vii Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Čefurs ........................................................................................................................................ 2 1.2 Tracing the Socio-economic and Historical Subtext ................................................................. 3 1.3 Xenophobia: Discourse and Trauma in Vojnović’s Čefurji Raus! ........................................... 5 Chapter 2: Interpellating Identity ....................................................................................... 12 2.1 The Čefur Stereotype .............................................................................................................. 13 2.2 Defining Methodology ............................................................................................................ 14 2.3 Looking in the Mirror - “The Continuum of Apparatuses” .................................................... 17 2.1 Hailing the Self – Marko accepts his interpellation? – and Mimicry ..................................... 30 2.1.1 Practice and Ritual ........................................................................................................... 32 2.1.2 Mimicry ........................................................................................................................... 37 2.2 The Abjection .......................................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 3: The Mist of Trauma .......................................................................................... 45 3.1 Defining Trauma ..................................................................................................................... 45 3.2 Thinking Trauma – Trauma as a Tool .................................................................................... 53 3.3 Training Anxiety – The Imposition of the Trauma Apparatus ............................................... 55 3.3.1 Discourse and Terminology ............................................................................................. 55 3.3.2 Public Names and Figures ............................................................................................... 61 3.4 The Intimate and Public Components of the Trauma Apparatus – Diaspora and War ........... 64 3.4.1 “A Lost Yugoslavia” – The Smoking Tentacles ............................................................. 69 3.4.2 Losing Home ................................................................................................................... 70 3.4.3 Postmemory ..................................................................................................................... 72 3.4.4 The Erasure ...................................................................................................................... 74 iv 4 Chapter: And Your Point is? – Accepting Discomfort ................................................ 81 4.1 An Uncomfortable Slovene Response .................................................................................... 82 4.2 Sara Ahmed’s “Affective Economies” and The Cultural Politics of Emotion ....................... 87 4.3 Opening Up – Spaces of Curiosity and Empathy, Spaces of Difference – Framing the Narrative ........................................................................................................................................... 88 4.4 If You Wanted a Solution, I Have One, But You Are Not Going to Like it ........................... 90 4.5 A Few Final Thoughts ............................................................................................................. 93 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................... 97 v Acknowledgements While projects such as this are usually cited with only one author, they nevertheless require the assistance of multiple individuals. I would like to give a special thanks to my family and other loved ones for supporting me in every which way. I certainly would not have succeeded without your patience, kind words, “kicks in the butt,” distractions, and your willingness to act as my sounding boards time and time again. Similarly, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Janet MacArthur for her dedication and support. Without her helpful feedback, confidence boosts, and pushes in the right direction, this dissertation would not have succeeded. I would also like to thank my defence committee, Dr. Lisa Grekul, Dr. Jelena Jovicic, and Dr. Martin Blum, for their patient and comprehensive suggestions and questions, much would have gone missed without their careful attention. In addition, I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for their generous grants, a $17,500.00 Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2012) and a $6,000.00 Canada Graduate Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement (2014), and UBC Okanagan. This project would not have been possible without their generous funding. Lastly, I would like to thank Dr. Alojzia Zupan Sosič for allowing me to take her course on the Contemporary Slovene Novel (Sodobni Slovenski Roman), my friend Katarina Fatur for her patient edits and instruction on my attempts at writing University level papers in Slovene, and Lina Šinkovec for helping me with the non-Slovene terminology. Lastly, I would like to thank the author of my primary work Goran Vojnović for meeting me for coffee. Although I did not use our discussion in this work, it inevitably brought my attention to insights I might not have noticed otherwise. Thank you! Najlepša hvala! vi Dedication To my family and loved ones for reminding me to trust myself. vii Chapter 1: Introduction In the early 2000s my family drove through Bosnia-Herzegovina, as we took a detour on our way back home to Slovenia from the Croatian island Hvar. I was told to look out the window. I will probably never forget what I saw – churches riddled with bullet holes; towns with only one house standing, the rest abandoned and pockmarked with bullets; towns full of lights, except for that one, bullet covered house. Goran Vojnović’s 2008 novel Čefuji Raus!, [Southern Scum go home! (trans. 2012)] tells the story of seventeen-year-old narrator protagonist Marko Đorđić (hereinafter Marko) and his three friends, Aco, Dejan,

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