Black mourning : readings of loss, desire, and racial identification

dc.contributor.advisorCvetkovich, Ann, 1957-
dc.contributor.advisorWoodard, Helena, 1953-
dc.creatorWilliams, Jennifer Deniseen
dc.date.accessioned2015-05-05T18:03:12Zen
dc.date.available2015-05-05T18:03:12Zen
dc.date.issued2006-12en
dc.descriptiontexten
dc.description.abstractBlack Mourning: Readings of Loss, Desire and Racial Identification explores a diverse archive of African American literary and cultural texts in order to reveal loss as a necessary condition of racial identification. To support this assertion, this study broaches a theoretical gap that persists between black literary and cultural studies and revisionist approaches to psychoanalytic theory. Using the lens of trauma theory, Black Mourning reframes cultural memory and black subjectivity in ways that supplant performances of racial authenticity with an affective politics. Black expressive culture and performance aesthetics undergird this critical model. Chapter One "Jean Toomer's Cane and the Erotics of Mourning" configures cultural memory in relation to the formation of modern blackness. Chapter Two "'Nobody Knows My Name': Ann Petry's The Street and Black Women’s Blues Protest" uses a blues aesthetic to access hidden texts of black female sexual trauma. Chapter Three "The Queerness of Blackness: Marlon Riggs's Black Is … Black Ain't" looks at embodied trauma as an a foundation for reimagining black collectivity. The fourth chapter "Archiving Blackness: Danzy Senna's Caucasia and Post-Soul Aesthetics" moves beyond fixed narratives of race to conceptualize innovative ways of archiving blackness.en
dc.description.departmentEnglishen
dc.format.mediumelectronicen
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2152/29692en
dc.language.isoengen
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.en
dc.subjectAfrican American literatureen
dc.subjectAfrican American cultural textsen
dc.subjectLossen
dc.subjectRacial identificationen
dc.subjectTrauma theoryen
dc.subjectCultural memoryen
dc.subjectBlack subjectivityen
dc.titleBlack mourning : readings of loss, desire, and racial identificationen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen
thesis.degree.disciplineEnglishen
thesis.degree.grantorThe University of Texas at Austinen
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen

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