The 'gypsy' as muse and metaphor: Modernity, mobility and a people's struggle for subjectivity

The 'gypsy' as Muse and Metaphor argues that the Romani encounter with modernity is obscured by the prolific use of the 'gypsy' as trope, unless one pays attention to the trope itself to fathom the agendas it serves in the dominant discourses of modernity. The provenance of the trope and its signifying power depends upon the invisibility of the real people---the Roma---who bear the consequences of being objectified as 'gypsies'. Examining the negative and romanticized connotations that cling to the 'gypsy' and its semantic terrain---nomad, bohemian, vagabond, vagrant, I demonstrate the asymmetries of power that inflect the social, political and historical circumstances in which the trope gains currency. In order to make visible the Romani struggle for subjectivity and to highlight the disparity between inhabiting a 'text' and living in the real world, my discussion of the 'gypsy' trope is juxtaposed with a discussion of the identity politics that mark a subaltern group's encounter with modernity.;Located in the twentieth-century and premised on a discussion of privileged vs. transgressive mobility, my repertoire of images and texts analyzes the culturally produced 'gypsy' in conjunction with the Romani struggle for sovereignty. This methodology draws attention to the complexities of inhabiting modernity as some sort of discrete realm determined by the European west, and recognizes the multiple, hybrid and protean nature of modernity. Implicitly, I critique the emphasis on western frameworks of the literary and textual historicity which prove hazardous for communities who archive their history in the oral tradition, or recognize other inscriptions of history; by doing so I contribute to the emerging scholarship engaged in extricating Gypsy people from the abstractions through which they have long occupied the popular and institutional imagination. This dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach drawing from postcolonial theory, literary and cultural studies, sociological and ethnographic research and includes the concerns of Romani scholars, intellectuals and activists engaged in gaining rights and recognition for their communities.