For All Peoples and All Nations: Anglophone Literature and the Imaginative Work of International Law (1884-2017) by Michael Anthony Donnelly A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Michael Anthony Donnelly, 2017 ii For All Peoples and All Nations: Anglophone Literature and the Imaginative Work of International Law (1884-2017) Michael Anthony Donnelly Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto 2017 Abstract This thesis explores how Anglophone literature debated the rise of modern international law since the late nineteenth century, including the founding of the United Nations and the 1948 declaration of human rights. While international law has its origins in the early modern period, it was largely at the turn of the century, with the Berlin Conference, that it began taking shape as a colonial and then a postcolonial, global ethics. In this thesis, I lay claim to literature’s capacity to legislate by examining instances where Anglophone novelists—including Joseph Conrad, Bryher, Vladimir Nabokov, Chinua Achebe, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie—work through the promises and problems of international jurisprudence. More than a mere reflection of international law’s evolving theory and practice, the literature I treat registers the law’s presumptions and first principles while interrogating its capacity to follow through with its declarations. In spreading the law’s claims while also submitting them to the scrutiny of close reading, these novels are both advocates of and at times stubborn liabilities for international law’s normative worlds. Collectively, these Anglophone novelists scrutinize international law’s ability to shape the ways we come to know ourselves and one another as rights-bearing individuals, international actors, advocates, and activists. Recent work in the humanities has begun to address the ways in which international law is a set of interlocked narratives that claim ii iii to enshrine common sense when, in fact, they curate and confine modern ways of knowing, feeling, and belonging. By attending to issues that often go unacknowledged in the ordinary practices of international law—questions about subjectivity and self-fashioning, concerns about security and citizenship—I continue the work of examining international law’s epistemologies. In approaching literature as responsive to legal developments, and law as dependent on the narrative logic conventionally reserved for literature, I narrate the kinds of life and liberty that international law makes both conceivable and inconceivable, while at same time examining the literary contexts that continue to shape its apparent common sense. iii iv Acknowledgments Finishing this thesis would have been unthinkable without the kindness, support, and care of several important people. I want to start by thanking the newly-minted Dr. Deni Kasa, whose friendship and comradery contributed in innumerable ways. He has read every word that I have written in the past seven years, and his support—especially during times of self-doubt—and insightful commentary has helped shape the thesis into its current form. I look forward to many, many, many years of collaboration between us; that book on Milton and Joyce must happen. It is to him that this thesis is dedicated. Falamenderit, my brother! Many thanks are due to my stellar supervisory committee, Greig Henderson, Simon Stern, and Cheryl Suzack, who have shepherded me through the process with so much care. Their commentary on the project and questions during the entire process—from the earliest hunches of an idea to the final shape of the thesis here—have helped me grow so much as a scholar and as a thinker. I have enjoyed being mentored by you all, and I do hope that I have made you proud. To Greig, I hope that I can follow in your footsteps and be as good a supervisor to my future students as you have been to me. To Elizabeth Anker, Neil ten Kortenaar, and Paul Downes, I owe a debt of gratitude for making the defense such a wonderful learning experience. Your questions about the project and comments about its future direction were so collegial and thoughtful. Elizabeth, thank you again for joining us in Toronto. Having everyone in the room, sitting around the table, made the experience even more memorable and allowed for such a rich discussion. Thanks to Carl Knappett, the defense chair, for making the process so smooth, and for keeping the energy in the room light and inviting. I also want to thank Sarah Wilson for supporting my early doctoral work, and to Linda Hutcheon for her encouragement along the way. To Danny Wright, Elizabeth Harvey, Heather Murray, Paul Stevens, Carol Percy, Malcolm Woodland, and Andrea Charise, for their assistance with job letters, postdoctoral applications, and professional development, more generally. iv v To Nick Mount, Daniela Janes, Andrew Lesk, Michael Cobb, Daniel Tysdal, and Sarah Salih for cultivating my confidence in the classroom. To my students at the University of Toronto for keeping me sharp and making each day in class such an enjoyable experience. To Marguerite Perry, Tanuja Persaud, and Sangeeta Panjwani for their administrative support over the years. Special thanks are due to Marguerite, who so thoughtfully sat with me as I waited outside the examination room for the verdict. I want to thank the Canadian Government for various scholarships and awards over the years that allowed me to complete my studies, and to the University of Toronto for making me feel so at home and for providing me with such a life-changing opportunity. I also want to thank the Mellon Foundation for their support as I embark on my next project. Finally, I want to thank my parents, Ray and Shellie, who have always nurtured my love of learning. Mum, thanks for taking me to the library as a child, and for fostering a love of books and a curiosity to learn from them. Thanks are due to my two brothers, Joseph and John Paul, and to my extended family and friends. I hope that these words make you all proud. Michael v vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi Introduction: Anglophone Literature and Legal Worlds ................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: If Things Were Different: Fin de Siècle Utopia, Human Rights, and Looking Forward to the Laws of Utopia ................................................................................................ 11 1.1 Looking Forward .............................................................................................................. 13 1.2 Nowhere in Particular ....................................................................................................... 24 1.3 Anticipating Justice ........................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2: Writing in the Service: Lord Jim, Imperialism, and Conrad’s Troubling Jurisdiction ............................................................................................................................... 36 2.1 Brought Up to the Seas ..................................................................................................... 40 2.2 One of Us .......................................................................................................................... 47 2.3 Troubling Jurisdiction ....................................................................................................... 52 2.4 Representing Jurisdiction .................................................................................................. 56 2.5 The Limits of Lord Jim ..................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 3: Intuiting Human Rights: Bryher, Nabokov, and the Interpretive Communities of International Law ..................................................................................................................... 67 3.1 Intuition and International Law ........................................................................................ 70 3.2 Bryher’s Politics of Intervention ....................................................................................... 75 3.3 Bryher’s Human Rights Aesthetic .................................................................................... 79 3.4 Nabokov, Intuitively ......................................................................................................... 84 3.5 People from Porlock ......................................................................................................... 88 Chapter 4: The Bildungsroman and Biafran Sovereignty in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun ................................................................................................................. 97 4.1 Biafra’s Contested Sovereignty ...................................................................................... 100 4.2 Making a Case for Biafra ................................................................................................ 107 vi vii 4.3 Bildung and the Vitality of Biafra .................................................................................