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Laughter’s Fury: The Double Bind of Black Laughter A dissertation submitted by Diego A. Millan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English TUFTS UNIVERSITY August 2016 ©2016, Diego A. Millan Advisor: Christina Sharpe ii Abstract Laughter’s Fury: The Double Bind of Black Laughter Laughter’s Fury advances two major claims: that western philosophical and cultural traditions marginalize Blackness within theories of laughter, and that laughter’s sonic disruptiveness contributes to the intellectual development of a Black radical consciousness. Reading theories of laughter alongside Black literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this project bridges the two historically separate strands of scholarship – Black Studies and Humor Studies. The disproportionate way in which humor scholars fasten laughter to affects such as joy overinvests laughter with a sense of goodness; consequently, this idea of laughter as an act of affirmation occludes how laughter operates in modes of protest and rebellion. Most theories of comedy uphold an Aristotelian premise that laughter is “essentially human,” which extends laughter’s status as good to the safeguarding of Western definitions of the human. Yet as scholars such as Sylvia Wynter and Saidiya Hartman have illustrated, the emergence of Western civilization and liberal humanism depended on the violent, repeated repudiation of blackness and of Black subjectivity. I ground my project in the perspective granted by this foundation in critical theory and cultural analysis to examine laughter’s role in securing the boundaries of the human and examine the double bind of Black laughter within the US cultural imaginary – the impasse that appears when laughter is associated with life and positivity by a culture that equates Blackness with negativity and death. iii I examine the ways that laughter circulates within a Black cultural imaginary in relation to a diverse and interdisciplinary range of sources: literary, historical, and theoretical. Calling upon these varied sources, each chapter traces a different avenue for considering laughter’s role in Black literature: undoing western epistemology (chapter one), crafting a literary voice (chapter two), and revising historical narrative (chapter three). In particular, I examine Black laughter as an expression of Frantz Fanon’s anticolonial praxis developed across his four published texts; the significance of voice in antebellum Black American literature, especially James McCune Smith’s pseudonymous writings and Frank J. Webb’s The Garies and Their Friends; and the redefining of Black laugher within Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition and its revision of the 1898 Wilmington Riot. iv Acknowledgements I often joke that I got to where I am by an unfathomable stroke of dumb luck. The truth is the incredible kindness, support, and love of a vast network of family, friends, and colleagues has supported me in ways I could not imagine; I offer the following words by way of thanks. As a young scholar, I have benefitted from the direction, patience, and compassion of my committee, whose guidance saw me through the completion of this project. Christina Sharpe served as the director for this project and has been looking out for me longer than I can remember. Her gentle and at times very necessary corrections during both seminar and the dissertation process have not only taught me to be a more careful scholar and writer but also a more compassionate teacher. Her passion for the work will always be an inspiration. Greg Thomas joined the Tufts English Department at the outset of this project and signed on to work together sometime during our first meeting. I thank him for the enthusiasm he has always shown this work. His thoughtful reading of my materials and his generosity has led my thinking down new and productive avenues. Joseph Litvak’s impeccable sense of humor is matched only by his warmth and kindness. His encouragement to write with style has resulted in some of my favorite passages in this project. Sandy Alexandre graciously joined this committee as its fourth reader, and I am immensely grateful for her insights and collegiality. Finally, I thank Modhumita Roy, the unofficial fifth member of my committee, for her kindness and willingness to share snacks. The English Department office staff – Wendy, Chantal, and Douglas – has an inexhaustible amount of patience and wisdom. Thanks for letting me use up a considerable bit of both. I recently described graduate school as a profoundly isolating endeavor. For their camaraderie and solidarity, I offer my sincerest thanks to the following friends and colleagues: Ugonna Onyekwu, James Harris, Chris Knight, Sam Kamin, Donald Theodate, Vivek Freitas, James Mulder, Sara Hasselbach, Jess Pfeffer, Bryn Gravitt, Luke Mueller, Chris Payson, Emma Schneider, Margaret Love. Making friends since moving to Baton Rouge hasn’t always been easy, so I would like to thank John Miles for his encouragement and perpetual willingness to grab some lunch. My childhood friends deserve special mention: Andres Sanchez, Santiago Carvallo, Erin Cody, and Josh Milowe. You have known me longer than most people in this world yet still consider me a friend; I’m baffled. The research for this project and other work has been funded by grants from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, The Social Science Research Council’s Mellon Mays Graduate Initiative, and the Tufts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In particular, I thank the SSRC’s Cally Waite for her advice. I have also been the recipient of a Posse Leadership Scholarship and a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship. Both of these awards helped prepare me in many ways for my graduate career, and I remain immensely thankful to each program. v My family and I came to the United States when I was just under three years old. My parents sought better medical care for my brother Felipe, who was diagnosed with severe autism. As I approach the age my parents were when they first came to this country, I still cannot imagine the struggle it must have been leaving their home and moving to a an entirely new place with four young children, not knowing the dominant language, and having no option but to make it work. And they did it before the Internet. For teaching me the value of a strong work ethic, I thank my parents, Ramiro and Luz-Maria. My oldest brother, Ramiro, once told me he was proud to see the man I had grown into. I am proud to see the father he has grown into. My sister Macarena may be the only family member to read my dissertation. With that in mind, I say you’ve always been my favorite. And though he will never read these words, I will show Felipe my thanks with a hug and a kiss the next time I see him. My sister’s fiancé, Geoffrey, is one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I’ve met. He also gives the best hugs. Finally, I thank my nephews, Aiden and Ethan, for keeping me grounded and for teaching me to play Minecraft. Emily King, my partner and best friend, deserves my deepest gratitude – Emily, who is good to me, who keeps learning the games as fast as I can change them – I marvel daily at the miracle that is your decision to love me. In your dissertation’s acknowledgements, you wrote that you looked forward to supporting me as I began the dissertation process not knowing how shamelessly I would take you up on it. Your keen eye and scrupulous attention to my writing saved me from myself on more than one occasion; that being said, any errors that persist are solely a result of my inability to heed your sound advice. vi Table of Contents Introduction “Laughing loudly and contemptuously: 1 Toward a Theory of Black Laughter Chapter One Wit’s End: Frantz Fanon and the Psychodynamics of Black Laughter 23 Chapter Two “Voice might discover him”: The Subject of Voice 62 In James McCune Smith’s Pseudonymous Writings and Frank J. Webb’s The Garies and Their Friends Chapter Three Laughing Black in Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition 111 Coda Laughter. Community. Protest. 151 Endnotes 156 Bibliography 166 1 Introduction “Laughing loudly and contemptuously”: Toward a Theory of Black Laughter During a 1994 field trip to the Grand Lake Theater on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, students from Oakland’s Castlemont High were removed from a theater for laughing during a screening of Schindler’s List. Their removal was done in response to complaints from older, white moviegoers who said the laughter at the film about the Holocaust disrupted their ability to enjoy the film. The story received ample news coverage, ballooning quickly into a national debate about propriety, laughter, and cultural sensitivity. The ease with which news outlets scrutinized Castlemont’s mostly Black and Latino students generated all manner of racist arguments about the difficulties of “urban” education that blame “boisterous youths” for their lack of achievement. Critiques citing their laughter as evidence of an empathic lack amounted to telling these students to subordinate their ways of watching film, their affective responses – in effect the right to inhabit their bodies – to idealized notions of shared, universal suffering and to bourgeois middle-class definitions of who and what deserves sympathy. What remained curiously unasked by most, however, was why these students laughed in the first place and why their laughter registered as so offensive to some. 2 I offer this anecdote as a way to introduce my dissertation’s examination of Black laughter.
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