Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire

Hamzah, Shareena Z.

doi:10.23889/SUthesis.40421

E-Thesis 1291 views

Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire / Shareena Z. Hamzah

Swansea University Author: Shareena Z. Hamzah

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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.40421

Abstract

Jeanette Winterson is an influential and award-winning contemporary British writer whose books combine aspects of philosophy, spirituality, and sexual politics. This thesis explores Winterson’s treatment of the body, gender, and sexuality to examine the fluidity of desire and pleasure, focusing main...

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Published:	2018
Institution:	Swansea University
Degree level:	Doctoral
Degree name:	Ph.D
URI:	https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40421

first_indexed	2018-05-25T13:11:25Z
last_indexed	2025-04-02T03:23:16Z
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spelling	2025-04-01T10:44:52.0470522 v2 40421 2018-05-25 Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire 292f4cc47512878133ed970dc2aa6857 NULL Shareena Z. Hamzah Shareena Z. Hamzah true true 2018-05-25 Jeanette Winterson is an influential and award-winning contemporary British writer whose books combine aspects of philosophy, spirituality, and sexual politics. This thesis explores Winterson’s treatment of the body, gender, and sexuality to examine the fluidity of desire and pleasure, focusing mainly on Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Boating For Beginners, The Passion, Sexing The Cherry, Written on The Body, The PowerBook, and The Daylight Gate. The thesis illustrates the ‘alternative’ fetishism that Winterson consistently presents through the deconstruction of the body and the remapping of gender and sexuality. The study suggests that in Winterson’s work there is queering of fetishism that opens up a new perspective on the psychoanalytical reading of such texts. A queer reading of fetishism is an extremely useful analytical tool and the thesis suggests that insufficient critical attention has been paid to the possibilities it presents. The thesis uses an amalgamation of established and contemporary theoretical approaches to the body, gender, and sexuality to understand the challenge to boundaries that occurs in Winterson’s writing. Psychoanalytical theories from Freud, Lacan, Foucault, and Butler are employed, combined with an interdisciplinary span of contemporary literary criticism from post-structuralist, feminist, and cultural materialist perspectives. The study argues that Winterson refashions discourses of sexuality, identity, and gender through alternative fetishism to demonstrate the existence of diverse and fluid desire in the self and the other. The scope of fetishism in this thesis is not only limited to sex; there are chapters on bodily fetishism, food fetishism, and sexual fetishism. The thesis argues that through images of queer bodies, Winterson’s writing challenges the meaning of gender, sexuality, and identity and opens a new portal in the reading of diverse pleasure and desire as she commingles orthodox, normative, and contemporary notions of ‘fetishistic’ desire to create an alternative view of the subject. E-Thesis Contemporary literary criticism 31 12 2018 2018-12-31 10.23889/SUthesis.40421 Due to Embargo and/or Third Party Copyright restrictions, this thesis is not available via this service. COLLEGE NANME English Literature and Creative Writing COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Doctoral Ph.D Not Required 2025-04-01T10:44:52.0470522 2018-05-25T11:59:04.8146139 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing Shareena Z. Hamzah NULL 1
title	Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire
spellingShingle	Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire Shareena Z. Hamzah
title_short	Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire
title_full	Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire
title_fullStr	Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire
title_full_unstemmed	Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire
title_sort	Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire
author_id_str_mv	292f4cc47512878133ed970dc2aa6857
author_id_fullname_str_mv	292f4cc47512878133ed970dc2aa6857_***_Shareena Z. Hamzah
author	Shareena Z. Hamzah
author2	Shareena Z. Hamzah
format	E-Thesis
publishDate	2018
institution	Swansea University
doi_str_mv	10.23889/SUthesis.40421
college_str	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchytype
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hierarchy_top_title	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id	facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str	School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing
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description	Jeanette Winterson is an influential and award-winning contemporary British writer whose books combine aspects of philosophy, spirituality, and sexual politics. This thesis explores Winterson’s treatment of the body, gender, and sexuality to examine the fluidity of desire and pleasure, focusing mainly on Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Boating For Beginners, The Passion, Sexing The Cherry, Written on The Body, The PowerBook, and The Daylight Gate. The thesis illustrates the ‘alternative’ fetishism that Winterson consistently presents through the deconstruction of the body and the remapping of gender and sexuality. The study suggests that in Winterson’s work there is queering of fetishism that opens up a new perspective on the psychoanalytical reading of such texts. A queer reading of fetishism is an extremely useful analytical tool and the thesis suggests that insufficient critical attention has been paid to the possibilities it presents. The thesis uses an amalgamation of established and contemporary theoretical approaches to the body, gender, and sexuality to understand the challenge to boundaries that occurs in Winterson’s writing. Psychoanalytical theories from Freud, Lacan, Foucault, and Butler are employed, combined with an interdisciplinary span of contemporary literary criticism from post-structuralist, feminist, and cultural materialist perspectives. The study argues that Winterson refashions discourses of sexuality, identity, and gender through alternative fetishism to demonstrate the existence of diverse and fluid desire in the self and the other. The scope of fetishism in this thesis is not only limited to sex; there are chapters on bodily fetishism, food fetishism, and sexual fetishism. The thesis argues that through images of queer bodies, Winterson’s writing challenges the meaning of gender, sexuality, and identity and opens a new portal in the reading of diverse pleasure and desire as she commingles orthodox, normative, and contemporary notions of ‘fetishistic’ desire to create an alternative view of the subject.
published_date	2018-12-31T08:36:20Z
_version_	1830268625257234432
score	11.060726

Fetishism and Fluidity: Jeanette Winterson"s Narratives of Diverse Pleasure and Desire / Shareena Z. Hamzah

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