Autobiographical Deformations and the Literary Lineage of Afro-Pessimism in 20Th and 21St Century African American Literature

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Outside Relationality: Autobiographical Deformations and the Literary Lineage of Afro-pessimism in 20th and 21st Century African American Literature A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Yumi Pak Committee in charge: Professor Camille F. Forbes, Chair Professor Patrick Anderson Professor Dennis R. Childs Professor Fatima El-Tayeb Professor Lisa Lowe 2012 Copyright © Yumi Pak, 2012 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Yumi Pak is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2012 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page………………………………………………………………………… iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………... iv List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………. v Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………… vi Vita……………………………………………………………………………………. xii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….. xiii Introduction………………………………………………………………………….... 1 Chapter One – Alternative Modernity, Alternative Blackness: Lynching and the Oracular Swan-song of Jean Toomer’s Cane…………………………………………………… 30 Chapter Two – “A Being Outside of Relationality”: Queering Natal Alienation in Chester Himes’ Yesterday Will Make You Cry……………………………………………….… 94 Chapter Three – The Futility/Futurity of Exile: James Baldwin and the “Irrevocable Condition” of Giovanni’s Room………………………………………………………. 152 Chapter Four – The Afterlife of Slavery: Singing the Unspeakable Familial/Familiarity in Gayl Jones’ Corregidora……………………………………………………………… 210 Conclusion – Frank B. Wilderson, III and the Cosmic Hobo………………………… 268 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….……. 277 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1: The Slave Ship………………………………………………………….… 1 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While my time as a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, officially began in September 2005 – and work on the dissertation started in earnest in September 2009, the quarter after the completion of my qualifying exams – the grounds for my formative literary education and concurrent commitment to social justice and the possibilities of radical politics were laid long before I even recognized academia as a potential site of affiliation and belonging. No graduate student ever comes of age on her/his own, and at this time I would like to recognize the numerous individuals whose loving encouragement and intellectual generosity grace and influence my life. I must begin by thanking my dissertation committee for their unflagging support during the reading and writing process which seemed, at times, both interminable and relentless. Camille F. Forbes, Dennis R. Childs, Fatima El-Tayeb, Lisa Lowe and Patrick Anderson, this project would never have come to fruition without the countless hours, days, weeks, years, you spent offering constructive critiques and suggestions for improvement, illuminating methodological and theoretical footpaths that I was yet unaware of. I count myself as so incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to be guided by all of you in seminars and during office hours. I am exceedingly thankful to two members in particular: my committee chair, Camille F. Forbes, and Patrick Anderson in the Department of Communication. Camille, I still remember walking into your office with a nascent abstract for a qualifying paper that brought together Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Jean Toomer’s Cane, and the incredible patience you showed while I stumbled over questions that I can now recognize as panicked concerns vi about my ability to actually do this work, as opposed to concrete queries about the potential project. Since then, you read over everything I submitted, even if it was merely a few pages of half-formed ideas and close readings, and, perhaps more importantly, you knew when to push me to go further, to venture outside my academic comfort zone and allow myself to be unsettled in my lack of knowledge, to recognize that unsettlement as sites rich with budding opportunities for intellectual growth and contribution. Patrick, I cannot encapsulate everything you have done for me since I enrolled in your seminar on performance studies in 2007. You have exemplified every characteristic of a mentor and scholar I can only hope to emulate half as well someday – kindness, warmth, brilliance and a sense of humor that always made me leave our meetings revitalized and renewed in my excitement in the dissertation. Thank you both, so very much, for being my teachers and my guides. I am also grateful to the Department of Literature for providing me with funding toward completing the dissertation in the forms of the departmental One-Quarter Dissertation Fellowship (Fall 2011) and the Summer Research Grant (Summer 2011, Summer 2010). I have also had the good luck of having been taught by amazing teachers and professors during my high school and university years; it would be remiss of me to ignore the undeniable influences they had on my growth as a student of literature. At Castro Valley High School, I encountered many wonderful teachers in numerous subjects, but three of them deserve special mention: Peter Brewer (the now defunct Science Fiction/Fantasy Literature), Anne Parris (AP Senior English and Literature and Film), and Doug Rogers (Advanced Sophomore English). You three were my biggest vii inspirations during those uncertain, frustrating years, and I looked to you to see the kind of reader and writer I wanted to be – someone who is always in love with the words, with the craft of writing, but also with a commitment to integrity and honesty that I still aspire to today. Jody Greene and Karen Tei Yamashita were the two most formative professors during my time at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For teaching me to always question the concept of “the great books” and the canon, for introducing me to Michel Foucault, Jessica Hagedorn, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Aphra Behn, and Orlando Patterson, for taking what I thought was an individual, illogical anger and giving me the vocabulary to name it as reactions and responses to structures and histories of oppression, and for giving me a community that I did not know I belonged to and a voice I did not know I had, I can never thank you enough. Graduate school would have been an impossibility without the love and support of a loyal group of friends, a family by choice, in San Diego, many of whom I am also so proud to name as my colleagues. To my loves – Viviana MacManus, Caralyn Bialo, Sean Dinces, Jodi A. Eisenberg, Jason Farr, Joo Ok Kim, Lauren Heintz, Julie Burelle and Nicolette Cook – this dissertation is finished largely in part because of your constant friendship, emotional nurturance and, more pragmatically, the endless cups of coffee you bought for me while we camped out in various cafes for hours on end. The dedication you show to your craft, your courage despite the numerous difficulties that you/we encountered over the years, as students and individuals, and your ability to make me laugh, all the time, around the clock, inspire me to work even harder in an attempt to match who all of you are, as intellectuals and as my friends. Although it would take far viii too long to acknowledge each person individually, I want to take a moment to emphasize, to the best of my capability, the love and care that I got from Viviana MacManus, who, as my housemate of five years, saw me at my best and worst during every step of this process and never stopped cheering me on, particularly at 2:00 a.m. when I ran low on both chocolate and patience with myself. Vivi, I am not eloquent enough to even remotely come close to describing what your friendship and love have meant to me, and how much I admire you and everything that you have accomplished during our friendship. You kept me sane, healthy, laughing and growing during the past seven years, and are, in so many ways that I cannot name, so very inspirational to me. Thank you for helping me create a place to call home. To all of you, where would I – or this dissertation – be, without you? I am also incredibly lucky to have found an academic community outside of San Diego to keep me on task when I headed for the cooler, windier climate of Northern California. Bonnie Rhee Andryeyev, my former TA at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and now friend so close to my heart, thank you for all of our study dates, coffees and donuts in San Francisco. I remember being so moved by the way you read and taught literature when I was an undergraduate student, and I still hold so much admiration for the care you take with close reading and the attention to detail and craft you have in your own work. In 2010, Patrick Anderson nominated me to participate in the UC International Performance and Culture Multicampus Research Group. During this week- long workshop at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I met Sampada Aranke (University of California, Davis) and Omar Ricks (University of California, Berkeley), ix two scholars whose work and personalities aligned with mine. Sam and Omar, so much love for meeting with me in various locations in Oakland

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