Date of Award
Spring 4-13-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
April 2026
Department
English
College Granting Degree
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Department Granting Degree
English
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Taryne Jade Taylor
Abstract
This thesis explores how contemporary feminist dystopias represent erasure as a political and gendered force, and how survival is reimagined within systems that strip away memory, knowledge, and relational life. Focusing on The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta, I argue that these novels shift resistance away from spectacle and toward quieter practices of persistence. Rather than centering dramatic rebellion, both texts depict survival through care, storytelling, ritual, and inheritance–practices that sustain meaning as the world disappears. Drawing on feminist theory, ecofeminism, and scholarship on archives and surveillance, this project understands persistence as temporal, material, archival, and relational. In The Memory Police, disappearance reshapes perception and body, while memory endures through hidden spaces and narrative acts. In Memory of Water, scarcity and state control render knowledge dangerous, positioning water as a living archive. Together, these novels redefine resistance as the quiet, embodied work of carrying memory forward.
Recommended Citation
Jackson, Faith, "IN THE RUINS OF MEMORY: ERASURE AND SURVIVAL IN CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST DYSTOPIA" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 316.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general/316