Duke University Dissertation Template

Novel Speculations: Postrace Fictions in the 21st Century by Ellen Song Department of English Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Thomas Ferraro, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Aarthi Vadde, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Priscilla Wald ___________________________ Nathaniel Mackey Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 i v ABSTRACT Novel Speculations: Postrace Fictions in the 21st Century by Ellen Song Department of English Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Thomas Ferraro, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Aarthi Vadde, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Priscilla Wald ___________________________ Nathaniel Mackey An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 i v Copyright by Ellen Song 2018 Abstract This project charts the emergence of a postrace aesthetic in American fiction. It examines how American novels respond to the pressures of what has been called the paradox of the postrace era: that our images and rhetoric portray a nation moving toward racial equality while our statistics actually reveal the opposite. I argue that through the use of features such as futuristic orientation, racially unmarked characters, and the reconfiguration of racial groupings, postrace novels attempt to unsettle our notions of race – a paradoxical endeavor, for attempts to unsettle a category ultimately invoke it again. Capable of interrogating emergent cultural phenomena, postrace novels provide a crucial vantage point from which we can interpret the shifting operations of race in the 21st century. iv Dedication For my parents, Tae Hun Song and Hyun Suk Song v Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION: The Postrace Paradox in American Culture ............................................ 1 1. Technologies of Racial Transformation in Your Face in Mine ............................................ 27 2. Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea and the Limits of Colorblind Representation ........ 80 3. Racial Revelations: The Aesthetics of Withholding ......................................................... 123 4. Coercive Choice in Octavia Butler’s Dawn ........................................................................ 171 CONCLUSION: The Postrace in the Era of Trump .............................................................. 221 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 227 Biography ................................................................................................................................... 237 vi Acknowledgements I extend my sincerest thanks to my co-chairs, Tom Ferraro and Aarthi Vadde. Tom’s e-mail correspondence with me before I was ever officially accepted into this doctoral program made me believe that I could be worthy of leading an intellectual life; I do not know that I would have ended up on this path without his faith. Throughout the writing process, he consistently asked me the big questions and urged me to remember my own voice and passion, which I hope to do one day for my own students. Aarthi, whom I have admired since the early days for her poise, eloquence, and acuity, has held me to a rigorous standard of scholarship. She frequently reminded me of the nuanced, complex, and not-always-moral work that literature does, which shaped this project in important ways. I thank her for her unchanging attentiveness and intellectual generosity. I am grateful to Priscilla Wald, who possesses the uncanny ability to make her students believe that their ideas are worth pursuing, even – especially – at those moments when they are the most hesitant. Her boundless enthusiasm and unwavering support of her students are nothing short of inspiring. And finally, my heartfelt thanks to Nathaniel Mackey, who taught the best course I’ve ever taken as a graduate student, and who has always made me feel included in that most important of pronouns: we. Along the way, my fellow graduate students provided me with much-needed company and, at times, commiseration. Thanks for the coffee dates, for filling the gaps in my reading list, and for simply understanding; I’ll thank you in person. vii My parents, Tae Hun Song and Hyun Suk Song, whose blind faith in me has not wavered once, are models of perseverance. Their struggles daily remind me that it is a tremendous privilege to lead a life of the mind. Being their daughter is what keeps me grounded and returns me to myself when I get lost. Without any sense of hyperbole, this project could not have been actualized without the love, patience, and shelter of Davide Carozza, who has been by my side throughout the entire duration of this doctoral program. His generosity, both intellectual and emotional, has changed me and my life for the better. I cannot thank him enough. viii INTRODUCTION: The Postrace Paradox in American Culture On Racial Boundary Crossings On the screen, we see a young man dressed in a yellow button-down shirt, tucked into his belted jeans. We see him with golf clubs on a green course, ambling through his local farmers’ market, and watching over the safety of his community, unhesitant to call law enforcement if he feels it necessary. We are told initially that he is an “average teenager” who goes to school, enjoys video games, and listens to music in his room. The young man, however, has another story to tell. Far from being an average teen, he knows that he has “always felt different.” At movies and in other public spaces, he has always wondered, “Why am I not getting the respect I deserve?” He continues, “And then, it just hit me: I’m white. [pause] And thirty-five.” Harrison Booth identifies as a thirty-five-year old “Coca Cola systems engineer,” originally from Colorado, who favors Patagonia clothing and likes to envision the way he will look “after the surgery.” But Harrison was actually born Antoine Smalls, and his family refuses to accept his “transracial” identity, or his insistence that he is a white man although he has dark skin, braided hair, and attracts unwanted nods of solidarity from black people who walk past him on the street. According to Harrison/Antoine, his family simply “doesn’t get it.” He states: “They don’t realize that race is just a made-up thing. They grew up having labels and I’m just not like that.” The camera cuts away at one 1 point to the surgeon who will be performing the “racial transition,” which the doctor admits is fully possible – although he says after a pause that it’ll undoubtedly make Harrison/Antoine look “weird.” This is the beginning of the seventh episode of season one of Atlanta, rapper and actor Donald Glover’s absurdist-realist television show on FX about two black cousins trying to make it in the rap world of the eponymous city. The episode, entitled “B.A.N,” is an obvious spoof of the real-life cable network Black Entertainment Television, more popularly known as B.E.T. “B.A.N” features an episode-inside-an-episode, with one of Atlanta’s protagonists, the rapper Paper Boi, being called to a talk show to discuss the issue of trans identities, as he has previously disparaged transgender people in a song. The social concerns that are most pressing in the rapper’s life, however, relate to discrimination against black men. A speaker from an organization representing the interests of transgender people is also present at the table, arguing against the homophobia and transphobia of Paper Boi’s lyrics; she wants to convey the importance of intersectionality, of the common interests that should be undergirding groups dedicated to combatting racism, sexism, homo- and transphobia. The camera eventually cuts away to a live, on-the-spot video conversation with Harrison/Antoine, who looks the same as in the earlier interview, except he now has copper-blond hair, bangs and all. Paper Boi erupts into laughter, ridiculing Harrison/Antoine for his appearance, but when the Center of Trans American Issues representative then presses Harrison/Antoine for a condemnation of the rap community’s general “intolerance,” essentially asking for 2 Harrison/Antoine’s solidarity, the result is exactly both expected and not. In an ironic climax to the episode, the transracial black-to-white man does not believe in the reality of other trans identities, declaring gender transformation “unnatural” and homosexuality an “abomination,” and exploding any expectations for solidarity among the various groups that are lambasted for their difference (“B.A.N.”). I start with this rather lengthy overview of a cult-status cable television episode to establish the tenor of popular culture’s handling of the shifts in the boundaries of racial identification in the current era, otherwise known as the “postrace era.” The shifting boundaries of race in this 21st-century moment are simultaneously ridiculed for the obvious ways in which they are still tangled up with racialized power (for who gets

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