Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Publication Date

Fall 10-25-2017

Abstract

The African diaspora and postcolonial studies author George Lamming writes in his book “The Pleasures of Exile” that the Caliban character from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” “cannot be revealed in any relation to himself-for he has no self which is not a reaction to circumstances imposed upon his life” (Lamming, 1992, p. 107). One could argue that the only hope this half-human half-monstrous creature, or for that matter, any of us have to find peace, lies in the attempt to find resolution through the metaphorical slaying of our respective pasts. Like Caliban, many of us are never truly afforded the opportunity to observe, review, evaluate, or discover ourselves because we lack the means, the opportunity, and the perspective; effectively thereby taking for granted the measure and limitations of the conditions or circumstances into which we were born. This dissertation outlines the argument for critically examining oneself through a self-reflective panoptic autoethnographic process; advocating that the study of self not only allows for an accurate measuring of oneself, but more importantly provides an invaluable pathway to self-efficacy, one that can guide and encourage otherwise disenfranchised members of our global community that they too can change the trajectory of their respective stars.

Keywords: agency, autoethnography, self, self-reflective, self-efficacy,

Keywords

agency, autoethnography, self, self-reflective, self-efficacy

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dr. Lucretia Pence

Second Committee Member

Dr. Kathryn Watkins

Third Committee Member

Dr. Pisarn B. Chamcharatsri

Fourth Committee Member

Dr. Carolyn Hushman

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