Powerpdf File

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Liminal Erasures: Midwest Black Sexual Personhood in Visual Culture A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Gender Studies by Alfretter Latasha Fair 2016 © Copyright by Alfretter Latasha Fair 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Liminal Erasures: Midwest Black Sexual Personhood in Visual Culture by Alfretter Latasha Fair Doctor of Philosophy in Gender Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Kyungwon Hong, Chair Historian Andrew Cayton has referred to the American Midwest as the “anti-region” due to its lack of a uniform regional narrative. My study, “Liminal Erasures: Midwest Black Sexual Personhood in Visual Culture,” builds on Cayton’s position to argue that the Midwest understood as a set of political and economic relations, rather than as an established geography best demonstrates the liminality of Blackness. Liminality refers to the position and movement of black subjects within and outside of personhood vis-à-vis discourses of freedom and capital, and I delineate the ways in which the Midwest as a political formation plays a central role in this process. While I do not attempt to offer a totalizing understanding of “The Midwest,” my project instead engages the question: In what ways has black gendered and sexual personhood been defined and actively shaped by prevailing cultural, legal, and geographical understandings of the American Midwest? While the Midwest has been a crucial site for the constitution of black personhood, it has been understudied in black feminist and queer studies and gender and sexuality studies more broadly. “Liminal Erasures” aims to fill this gap by highlighting the ways ii in which the Midwest’s particular history of claiming a liberal anti-racism, especially in comparison with the South comes into productive tension with its histories of anti-black policing and sexual regulation. Guided by an interdisciplinary approach, I examine a diverse archive of cultural and historical examples in my consideration of black liminality in the Midwest. For example, I discuss legal decisions that articulate and envision foundational understandings of the region like the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, alongside key visual cultural examples such as the Bertillon System of Criminal Identification arrest records of black women who worked as sex workers in downtown Minneapolis in the late nineteenth century. “Liminal Erasures” attends to the ways in which black escape, resistance, and disappearance from institutions and visual archives of policing and regulation illuminate the Midwest as an effective site to capture and move forward the living tensions and contradictions that exist between American liberal democracy and capitalism. iii The dissertation of Alfretter Latasha Fair is approved. Juliet A. Williams Aisha Finch Thu-huong Nguyen-vo Kara Keeling Kyungwon Hong, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv DEDICATION To my grandmother, Othelia D. Spivy. Thank you for your jokes, friendship, and for being an Aquarian kindred spirit. Your unconditional love and support continues to serve as my internal compass. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ ix VITA .......................................................................................................................... xii INTRODUCTION: Black Liminality and the American Midwest ............................ 1 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTERS: 1. The Portable Stroboflash and Black Liminality in the American Midwest ........... 26 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 102 2. “Alley Work” and the Politics of Black Women’s Sexual Labor in Industrializing Minneapolis .............................................................................................................. 109 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 146 3. Ruth Ellis and the Sociality of Black Queer Longevity in Detroit....................... 151 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 224 4. “Be Light within a Moment”: Nick Cave’s “Soundsuits” as Black Queer Value 231 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 266 CONCLUSION: The Political Potentiality of Midwest Liminality ....................... 272 Appendix A .............................................................................................................. 281 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 282 vi LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Fugitive Slave Notice for Joshua Glove ............................................................. 100 1.2 Edward Farber’s Stroboflash .............................................................................. 100 1.3 Photograph by Edward Farber (circa 1938) ....................................................... 101 2.1 Minneapolis Police Department, “Rogues Gallery” (1890) ............................... 142 2.2 May Moore, Bertillon Record (front) ................................................................. 142 2.3 May Moore, Bertillon Record (back) ................................................................. 143 2.4 Ethel Walters, Bertillon Record (front) .............................................................. 144 2.5 Ethel Walters, Bertillon Record (back) .............................................................. 145 3.1 Ruth Ellis and her brothers ................................................................................. 219 3.2 Ruth Ellis working at printing press ................................................................... 219 3.3 Ruth Ellis and friend .......................................................................................... 220 3.4 Babe Franklin ..................................................................................................... 220 3.5 Ruth Ellis and dancing with friends ................................................................... 221 3.6 Ruth Ellis portrait ............................................................................................... 221 3.7 Ruth Ellis kneeling in front of car ...................................................................... 222 3.8 Ruth Ellis and friend .......................................................................................... 222 3.9 Ruth Ellis Day Declaration, Detroit Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays ..... 223 4.1 Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” (1998) ........................................................................ 262 4.2 Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” (2006) ........................................................................ 262 4.3 Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” (2006) ........................................................................ 263 4.4 Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” (2006) ........................................................................ 263 4.5 Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” (2007) ........................................................................ 264 vii 4.6 Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” (2008) ........................................................................ 264 4.7 Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” (2009) ........................................................................ 265 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many sources of academic and financial support at the University of California, Los Angeles have contributed to this project. I was awarded funding through the Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Program during 2009 and 2010 to begin the early stages of research. I was also awarded a Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship for the 2011-2012 academic year through the Graduate Division. My development as a scholar has also been supported by UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women’s 2013 Kanner Next Generation Award. The Gender Studies Department has been an incredible source of care, collegiality, and friendship. In particular, the Gender Studies staff have provided critical support from the very beginning—Jenna Miller-Von Ah, Richard Medrano, Samantha Hogan, and Van Do-Nguyen, thanks for everything. My project has been shaped at different stages by the invaluable perspectives of the faculty on my committee: Grace Kyungwon Hong, Juliet Williams, Thu- huong Nguyen-vo, Kara Keeling, and Aisha Finch through their brilliant scholarship, advising, and teaching. I especially want to acknowledge my advisor Grace Kyungwon Hong for her passionate approach to advising and unwavering belief in this project from its initial stages. Dr. Hong’s attentive feedback has remained constant over the course of our years of working together, and she has managed to somehow simultaneously meet me where I am at and be at least two steps ahead which made the completion of the project more tangible. I am eternally grateful for the concentrated support and attention I have received in Gender Studies—it has indelibly shaped my approach to teaching, advising, and collaboration. I received three Gender Studies travel grants to complete

Load more