Date of Award
Spring 6-11-2023
Document Type
Thesis (Undergraduate)
Department
Comparative Literature
First Advisor
Dennis Washburn
Second Advisor
Ayo Coly
Abstract
The thesis explores how Enlightenment Thought defined a certain idea of being human through intertextual motifs observed in Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness and Yoshihiro Togashi's Japanese manga Hunter x Hunter. Such a comparative analysis is premised on the idea that the historical context that inspires the plot in both texts are interlinked i.e., the colonial context in the Congo under Belgian rule mined the uranium that was used in making the atomic bomb that struck Japan in 1945. As such, using a postcolonial biopolitical framework, the intertextual motifs are analysed to argue how Enlightenment Thinking became a haunting ideology that justified the imperial/colonial developments that are depicted in both works of literature.
Recommended Citation
Karimi, Pumho, "Postcolonial Hauntology of Modernity: Exploring Legacies of Enlightenment Thought in the Understanding of the 'Human' through Intertextualities in Heart of Darkness and Hunter x Hunter" (2023). Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses. 1.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/complit_senior_theses/1