Buggy Jiving: Comic Strategies of the Black Avant-Garde by Danielle Christine Heard This thesis/dissertation document has been electronically approved by the following individuals: Spillers,Hortense Jeanette (Chairperson) Waligora-Davis,Nicole A. (Minor Member) Mohanty,Satya P (Minor Member) BUGGY JIVING: COMIC STRATEGIES OF THE BLACK AVANT-GARDE A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Danielle Christine Heard August 2010 © 2010 Danielle Christine Heard BUGGY JIVING: COMIC STRATEGIES OF THE BLACK AVANT-GARDE Danielle Christine Heard, Ph.D. Cornell University 2010 Dissertation Abstract Buggy Jiving: Comic Strategies of the Black Avant-Garde, examines the radical strategic impulse of African American comedy in literary and cultural texts of the second half of the twentieth century in light of their potential for cultural transformation. “Buggy jiving,” a term that Ralph Ellison coins in Invisible Man, refers to a particular form of joking discourse that aims to enact social change by bringing into view the incongruity between appearance and reality, especially with regard to the idea of race in America. In other words, buggy jiving as a form of activism involves making an epistemic intervention into dominant culture that uniquely stems from the double-consciousness born of the experiences of African Americans. The trope of buggy jiving, which inflects much of Ellison’s literary and cultural-critical work, provides the theoretical lens through which to interpret black expressive culture from the post-World War II era into the present. In the introduction, Ellison is put retrospectively in conversation with W. E. B. Du Bois to consider how the “betweenness” of double- consciousness resembles the formal structure of a joke, and how to be black is, in both degrading and subversive senses, to be “funny.” Chapter One turns to the second half of the twentieth century to address the centrality of the comic to Ellison’s concept-metaphor of “invisibility” and also to his radical vision of ideal democracy. As an alternative to physical violence, Ellison privileges comic activism as a “more effective strategy” of social action and cultural transformation. For Ellison, the comic is culturally conjoined to black music, specifically jazz, through the corresponding techniques of rhythm, improvisation, antiphony, and repetition. The influence of music on Ellison’s understanding of the comic and its “poetics of invisibility” is further explored in Chapter Two, which examines the performances of the pianist, singer, and songwriter Nina Simone. These performances, which comprise a “theatre of invisibility,” are considered in light of her engagement in various political and cultural movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. Through an “economy of laughter,” Simone comically repackages the rightful fury and dismay of an “angry black woman” into a political critique, social vision, and call to action that speak across barriers of difference. Such an aesthetic and political countercurrent to dominant civil rights era black movements prefigures the nature of artistic political engagement during what has been called the “post-soul” era. Chapter Three thus concludes with a consideration of the possibilities and limitations of “buggy jiving” in two examples of black post-modernism, Percival Everett’s novel Erasure and Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled, in light of their Ellisonian themes and differing responses to the intersection of satire, representations of blackness, and the mass media. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Danielle Heard was born near Boston, Massachusetts in 1980. She graduated from Framingham High School before entering The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. as a freshman. After one year, she transferred to Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT where she received her B.A. in English with honors in 2002. She worked at a non- profit feminist activist organization in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania before beginning studies at Cornell University. In the fall of 2009, Heard joined the Andrew W. Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities at Stanford University as well as the English Department faculty at the University of California at Davis where she will begin teaching in 2011. iii To Daddy. Because of this dissertation, I now have a name for what you have been up to all these years. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My gratitude overflows for the professors, colleagues, friends, and family upon whose shoulders I humbly stand. I have been blessed with the extraordinary mentorship of incisive, dedicated, and generous advisors whose scholarly and pedagogical investments link solidly with their commitments to issues about culture and social justice that motivate my own pursuits of this degree. I have cherished being a student of Hortense Spillers, whose brilliance bedazzled me even before I had a chance to meet her. She is an intellectual’s intellectual who I am privileged to have witnessed in person—as a member of her graduate seminars on “odysseys” and “the idea of black culture,” as she gave epiphany-granting lessons on Faulkner’s fiction to undergraduates, or as she delivered lectures about American culture to a riveted conference in Nagoya, Japan, where she so generously invited me as her student. Hearing her stories of how she arrived at the point where she is now from the place where I have so recently been has truly inspired me, emboldened me, and prepared me for traversing the academy. I look no further than to Nicole-Waligora Davis as the model of professionalism for which I strive and which she is helping me to achieve. In the two impactful seminars I took with her, I relished her refreshing enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge about the subject matter, a passion and expertise that translates to her advising and mentorship. A visit to her office with a vague or unformulated idea routinely resulted in my brain buzzing with new clarity and overflowing with exciting possibilities for where to take my freshly-honed concept. A session with my mentor always meant for me a crash course in the past, v present, and future of African American studies. Even better, these sessions always gave me a glimpse into my role in it. I have always been inspired by my teacher’s intellectual style in that her passion for ideas is driven by sincere concern over the consequences of these ideas, often the life-or-death implications of justice. I certainly would not have made it this far without Satya Mohanty, whose sage pedagogical style continuously coaxed me in fruitful directions while leaving discovery to myself. His courses on literary theory and theories of identity helped me see how I could drive my commitment to social justice, one that he shares and exemplifies, through a life of serious critical inquiry. Over the course of being his student, he has shared wise nuggets of advice that, upon remembering them, rein me back in to the principles that guide me as a thinker, teacher, and writer. One of the most memorable, which he revealed during a seminar in my first semester at Cornell, is to make sure that I can explain my ideas in a way that my (hypothetical) grandmother can understand; because if she can’t, it means that even I don’t know what I am trying to say. As a mentor, he has provided a level of moral support that truly sustained me during some of the most challenging moments of my education. As well, he has extended innumerable opportunities for professional growth and linking with other scholars, many of whom are connected to the Future of Minority Studies. This, in fact, is where I had the pleasure of being introduced to Michele Elam, one of the most generous and impressive scholars I have known. At an FMS event, I met many of her graduate students who raved about her radiant intellect, supportive personality, and giving mentorship. Never would I have guessed that, in a few years, I would be benefitting from these qualities as she joined my vi dissertation committee from across the country. I have yet to figure out how she manages to find the time and energy to be as generous as she is to all her students and, at the same time, remain such a prodigious contributor to the profession and the field of African American studies. Besides my committee members, I have benefitted from the great support and guidance of so many smart and giving professors. I cannot thank Paul Sawyer enough for all that he has done for my growth as a pedagogue. My first experiences with teaching undergraduates came in my second semester at Cornell as I assisted his legendary “Sixties” lecture course. I saw there how to give a great lecture that would fill an auditorium to the rafters; I learned how to lead a seminar discussion; and I discovered how to get students to pause and reconsider how they had been viewing the ordinary aspects of the culture in which they live. Paul introduced me to the Cornell at Auburn Correctional Facility Program, a teaching experience that will forever ground my pedagogical perspective and principles. I am grateful for the passion and dedication of the professors with whom I founded the Comparative Race Studies Roundtable, Shelley Wong, Viranjini Munasinghe, and Derek Chang, as well as the graduate student founders, Jade Ferguson, Kate Hames, and Julian Lim. Conversations with Ken McClane and Barry Maxwell have given me invaluable new perspectives on my work, and I just wish I’d had more time to work with them. My research received the support of a variety of funding sources. I am grateful to the Ford Foundation Predoctoral fellowship, the Cornell American Studies Program Research Travel Grant, and to Kenneth vii McClane and Jonathan Culler for supporting my travel to the Future of Minority Studies Summer Seminar held at Stanford University in 2006.