| dc.description.abstract | Abstract In my thesis, Stories to Bridge the Borderlands: Anti-Colonial Writing in the Works of Gloria Anzaldúa and Leslie Marmon Silko, I review the complete works of Anzaldúa and Silko. I focus on their seminal pieces including Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and Silko’s Ceremony and Storyteller, as well as on their non-fiction works, such as their interview collections Conversations with Leslie Marmon Silko and Anzaldúa’s Interviews/Entrevistas: Gloria E. Anzaldúa. By comparatively analyzing these two authors, I find evidence of what Ashis Nandy has called a shared culture of colonization (Nandy 2; see also Smith 46-7). Both authors have been, and continue to be subjects of extensive analysis, sometimes appearing alongside each other in critical analysis in fields such as Post-Colonial Studies and Women’s Studies. In this thesis I show the nuanced ways in which colonialism has shaped both authors’ works and how they apply their writing as a form of anti-colonial activism. I approach the texts using a theoretical framework influenced by Multiracial Feminism, Indigenous Theory, and Post-Colonial Studies. In each chapter I review the authors’ works comparatively from several different thematic angels. In Chapter One, I explore how the authors’ acts of reclaiming multiracial and multicultural female figures in their writing functions as a method for reclaiming their own identities. The theme of Chapter Two springs from the feminist slogan “the personal is political.” In this chapter, I look at Anzaldúa and Silko’s use of oral storytelling respectively as tools for subverting Western patriarchal colonialism, showing how not only is the personal political, but the political is also highly personal, especially for women of color in Western-dominated post-colonial USA. Chapter Three is about the authors’ hopes and fears for the future, and how they use utopian and dystopian themes in their writing to further a political agenda. With this thesis I aim to contribute to the awareness of the complex ways in which late 20th and early 21st century colonialism may affect multicultural (and in Anzaldúa’s case, queer) women. My hypothesis is that examining the shared culture of colonialism between the authors provides new insights into the nature of modern-day colonialism in the USA. I believe that through their art, Gloria Anzaldúa and Leslie Marmon Silko showcase a politics of resistance, a politics which in turn has inspired readers across the globe to take up their causes. References: Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 4th ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999. ———. Interviews/Entrevistas: Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Keating, AnaLouise (ed.). New York and London: Routledge, 2000. Nandy, Ashis. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books, 1977. ———. Arnold, Ellen L. (ed.). Conversations with Leslie Marmon Silko. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000. ———. Storyteller. New York: Seaver Books, 1981. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd ed. London and New York and Dunedin: Zed Books and Otago University Press, 2012. | eng |