Hear the difference: "Minor" forms and modern consciousness in Yiddish and African literature.

This dissertation examines the development of narrative form in 19 th century Yiddish and 20th century West African literature. Engaging with the theory of "minor" literature articulated by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, this study adds to their framework for identifying "minor" literature---the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation---a focus on the adaptation of essentially oral cultures to new modes of written discourse, as well as a discussion of intrinsically and extrinsically deterritorialized languages. In addition to the work of Deleuze and Guattari, the dissertation evaluates the work of theorists such as Vladimir Propp, Mikhail Bakhtin, Walter Ong, Frantz Fanon, and Benedict Anderson.The first part of the dissertation discusses the history of Jewish East Europe and British-dominated West Africa, focusing on the first modern literary figures in these two cultures, Reb Nakhman of Breslov and Amos Tutuola. This comparison culminates with a comparison, along lines suggested by Vladimir Propp, of Reb Nakhman's first story, "The Story of a Lost Princess," with the "Complete Gentleman" episode from Tutuola's first novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Part Two offers a discussion of the first consciously modern ideologies in Jewish Eastern Europe and Francophone Africa--- haskole (the "Jewish Enlightenment") and negritude. This comparison focuses primarily on two narratives, the didactic tale Dos Vintshfingerl ("The Magic Ring") by Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh (Mendele Moykher-Sforim), and the philosophical novel L'aventure ambigue ("Ambiguous Adventure") by Cheikh Hamidou Kane. Part Three discusses the breakdown of haskole and negritude by analyzing two later Abramovitsh novels, Di Kliatshe ("The Mare") and Masoes Benyomin hashlishi ("The Travels of Benjamin the Third"), in comparison with the Nigerian novel The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka and the Ivoirian novel Les Soleils des independences ("The Suns of Independence") by Ahmadou Kourouma. The dissertation as a whole concludes with a consideration of Jewish literature in the aftermath of the Holocaust, when Yiddish no longer offers the option of an intrinsically Jewish, international, "minor" literary language, and a discussion of the linguistic options available to African writers at the beginning of the 21st century.Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2003.School code: 0146