Abstract
Due to the marginalization of non-western art, Homi Bhabha is credited with coining the term “Third Space” to describe the developing crevice between clashing cultures which in turn gives rise to new hybrid identities and center-periphery dichotomy. This dichotomy has resulted from the western domination by universalism which creates fragile relations between the center and the peripheries; one of power and authority rather than geography. A third space or hybrid realization is nurtured in migrants who are frequently exposed to other cultures. In other words, this in-between space has led to the consequences of alienation, cosmopolitanism, diaspora, displacement, hybridity and transnationalism. Hence, this research investigates how the novelist Salman Rushdie has decentered the dominant canon by advocating a hybrid world, in which diversity and heterogeneity are passionately cherished as a source of cultural novelty. The paper highlights how The Satanic Verses is clearly dedicated to the ideas of center-periphery dichotomy and third space by resisting the chimera of plausibility and opposing calls for homogeneity. And Bombay represents Rushdie’s ‘third principle,’ a space that attempts to include both sides of the east/west, secular/religious, real/fantasy, colonizer/colonized binary in ever new combinations that foreground hybridity over clarity and open-endedness over closer. Rushdie puts his protagonists in a difficult diasporic condition as a background for his suggestion that no other option rather than hybridity can cure the cultural wound and decrease the gap between the center and the margin, that hybridity is the perfect option for the disillusioned, disoriented diasporic states.
Presenters
Riham YassinAssistant Lecturer, Faculty of Linguistics and Translation - English Department, Badr University in Cairo, Egypt
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
THIRD SPACE, BHABHA, HYBRIDITY, DIASPORA, POSTCOLONIAL IDENTITY, SALMAN RUSHDIE
