Dr. Chester
Dinsmore

The Robinsonade, born of Defoe’s 1719 novel, separates a protagonist from society through a life-altering event and leaves them to survive on what is at hand. Over nearly four centuries the genre has retold essentially the same story, each version shaped by when, where, and by whom it was written.

The thesis pairs an original Robinsonade novel with a critical commentary. Grounded in the author’s own influences and cross-cultural experience, it places the novel within postcolonial discourse on globalism, multiculturalism, hybridity, and economics, and follows the solitary castaway’s path toward self-enlightenment.