Bordering on the impossible: Articulations of community in 'Third World' films and fiction

Through a comparative analysis of Chen Kaige's film Yellow Earth , Amadou Saleem Seck's film Saaraba, Zhang Chengzhi's short fiction and Nurrudin Farah's novel Maps, this dissertation examines some of the contradictions inherent in the ideological premises of Third World revolutions as they are articulated in culture and the potential of these contradictions to inspire alternative formulations of community.;Chapter one analyses the theoretical debates over the category “Third World” and argues for its relevance to the study of cultural productions at a specific historical juncture. It situates the texts under examination in relation to the history of Third World revolution and the contemporary global order. It also outlines the interpretive strategy of the dissertation, which highlights the critical as well as utopian dimensions of the texts.;Chapter two analyzes Yellow Earth as a critique of a Maoist project aimed at fostering a “mutual apprenticeship” between cultural workers and the peasantry. The film exposes the myriad contradictions and points to the historically unexplored utopian potential of the project.;Chapter three examines the problem of nativism through an analysis of the film Saaraba. The film also illustrates the danger of disillusionment in postcolonial societies and the difficulty in salvaging humanism as a new utopian discourse.;Chapter four offers an analysis of three pieces of short fiction by Zhang Chengzhi and explores their visions of faith and the challenges they pose for a Chinese nationalism which marginalizes ethnic minorities.;Chapter five analyzes the narrative strategy of Maps as a self-critical reenactment of an ethnocentric and misogynist discourse of nationalism. The novel examines the emotional appeal and devastating consequences of Pan-Somali aspirations which remain blind to the possibility of more hybrid and multicultural forms of community.;In conclusion, the dissertation argues that the aesthetic of hesitation common to all of the texts examined opens up a site for imagining what borders on the impossible. Such an aesthetic renders visible the traces and figures which suggest potentially less destructive principles of community and more inclusive ways of relating and living in difference.