Hospitality in crisis : new sincerity and receiving the stranger in Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet
department or school: Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Christensen, Brianne
issued: 2023-11-23T19:39:11Z
issued: 2023
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Questions of hospitality––in particular, those concerning its offer at national borders and the potential outcomes of this encounter––are increasing in social and political import in the contemporary moment as global communities experience the largest forced migration of people since the Second World War. Scottish author Ali Smith recognizes and commits to narratively representing hospitality as an urgent issue, especially in the context of ongoing migration debates in post-Brexit Britain. My Master’s thesis explores, with specific consideration of post-Brexit migration discourse and national mood, how thinking about migration, hospitality, and sincerity in very concrete ways structures Smith’s Seasonal Quartet as a literary project. Across the four novels, Smith develops and demonstrates a distinct rhetoric of hospitality that connects socio-political context and literary concerns with sincerity. By theorizing this rhetoric, I show how Smith’s treatment of hospitality might engage, substantiate, challenge, and even complicate current theories of hospitality, such as those presented by Jacques Derrida, Sara Ahmed, and Judith Still. Furthermore, while Smith’s Quartet addresses the context of migration in post-Brexit Britain and the pressing need of hospitality in social life as well as in art and literature, she is also developing sincere modes of writing that are attuned to hospitality. My thesis illustrates that these modes of writing align with New Sincerity, a literary genre concerned with sincere communication through realist aesthetics. I explore how Smith’s Quartet contributes to current understandings of this genre by evaluating the correlation between the novels’ narrative voice and Smith’s authorial persona, as expressed in public paratexts like interviews and related publications. Ultimately, I argue that Smith’s distinct rhetoric of hospitality necessitates consideration of, and makes possible new outcomes from, “narrative hospitality,” the role of sincer…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/86657
note: Hospitality in Crisis: New Sincerity and Receiving the Stranger in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet by Brianne Christensen BA (Hons) in English, University of British Columbia Okanagan, 2021 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) November 2023 © Brianne Christensen, 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: Hospitality in Crisis: New Sincerity and Receiving the Stranger in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet submitted by Brianne Christensen in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in English. Dr. Jennifer Gustar, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisor Dr. Margaret Reeves, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisory Committee Member Dr. George Grinnell, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Ilya Parkins, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University Examiner Click or tap here to enter text. External Examiner iii Abstract Questions of hospitality––in particular, those concerning its offer at national borders and the potential outcomes of this encounter––are increasing in social and political import in the contemporary moment as global communities experience the largest forced migration of people since the Second World War. Scottish author Ali Smith recognizes and commits to narratively representing hospitality as an urgent issue, especially in the context of ongoing migration debates in post-Brexit Britain. My Master’s thesis explores, with specific consideration of post-Brexit migration discourse and national mood, how thinking about migration, hospitality, and sincerity in very concrete ways structures Smith’s Seasonal Quartet as a literary project. Across the four novels, Smith develops and demonstrates a distinct rhetoric of hospitality…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-02
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0437863
language: eng
degree discipline: English
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Gustar, Jennifer
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86657