Um Estudo Sobre a Caracterização Do Vampiro Na Literatura Contemporânea

Fernanda Sousa Carvalho RACE, ETHNICITY, SEXUALITY, AND BLOOD IN CONTEMPORARY BLACK WOMEN’S SPECULATIVE FICTION Belo Horizonte Faculdade de Letras Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais February 2016 Fernanda Sousa Carvalho RACE, ETHNICITY, SEXUALITY, AND BLOOD IN CONTEMPORARY BLACK WOMEN’S SPECULATIVE FICTION Submitted to the Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras: Estudos Literários, Faculdade de Letras/UFMG in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor in Literatures in English. Advisor: Sandra Regina Goulart Almeida, PhD Belo Horizonte Faculdade de Letras Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais February 2016 Ficha catalográfica elaborada pelos Bibliotecários da Biblioteca FALE/UFMG Carvalho, Fernanda Sousa. C331r Race, ethnicity, sexuality, and blood in contemporary black women’s speculative fiction [manuscrito] / Fernanda Sousa Carvalho. – 2016. 220 p., enc. Orientadora: Sandra Regina Goulart Almeida. Área de concentração: Literaturas em Língua Inglesa. Linha de pesquisa: Literatura e Políticas do Contemporâneo. Tese (doutorado) – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Letras. Bibliografia: f. 206 -212. 1. Butler, Octavia E. – Fledgling – Crítica e interpretação – Teses. 2. Hopkinson, Nalo. – Brown Girl in the Ring – Crítica e interpretação – Teses. 3. Hopkinson, Nalo. – Greedy Choke Puppy – Crítica e interpretação – Teses. 4. Due, Tananarive, 1966 - – Living Blood – Crítica e interpretação – Teses. 5. Ficção americana – História e crítica – Teses. 6. Ficção canadense – História e crítica – Teses. 7. Sexo na literatura – Teses. 7. Etnologia – Teses. 8. Sangue na literatura – Teses. 9. Mulheres na literatura – Teses. 10. Negros na literatura – Teses. I. Almeida, Sandra Regina Goulart. II. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Faculdade de Letras. III. Título. CDD : 809.89287 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my mother Ernestina, for her irrefutable love and care; to my father, José Antônio, my sister, Nancy, and my brother, Bráulio, for their support and respect for my work. To my advisor, professor Sandra Regina Goulart Almeida, for believing in my potential since my undergraduate years, for being such a model for the professional I wish to be, for always supporting me in my projects, and for so generously and wisely guiding my research. To my American advisor, professor Susan Stanford Friedman, for her generosity and thoughtfulness in helping me to take the best advantage of the resources offered by the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) and to have all the necessary conditions to develop my research. To CAPES, for the financial support that made it possible for me to develop part of my research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To professors Leslie Bow, Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, Aida Levy-Hussen, and Mario Ortiz-Robles (UW-Madison), for so generously allowing me to audit their classes, which were fundamental for the writing of this dissertation and very inspirational for my career. To professors José dos Santos and Marcos Alexandre, who, as part of the committee for my qualifying exam, gave so many priceless contributions to this work. To my friend Flávia Monteiro, who often soothed my anxieties with consideration and friendship. To the Corbetts – Bob, Karen, Anders, Carl, Jack, and Ellie – for so generously receiving me in their house in Madison and showing so much thoughtfulness in helping me feel at home away from home. And to my Turkish kankas, Leyla and Nihan, for being such considerate friends and making my life in Madison happier. ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates how the issues of race, ethnicity, and sexuality are discussed in the novel Fledgling (2006) by Octavia Butler, in the novel Brown Girl in the Ring (1998) and in the short story “Greedy Choke Puppy” (2001) by Nalo Hopkinson, and in the novel The Living Blood (2001) by Tananarive Due. These works are examples of speculative fiction, an umbrella genre that encompasses others such as science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the gothic, and that comments on social constructions and current society by creating alternative beings and ways of life. Written by black women in in the United States and Canada at the end of the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s, the works analyzed here show that race, ethnicity, and sexuality are common concerns for the three writers. This is so because these issues, which are constructed by social and cultural discourses that often result in discrimination and marginalization, are interconnected, especially in the lives and identities of black women. This investigation also analyzes how Butler, Hopkinson, and Due use the symbolism of blood in their speculative representations of race, ethnicity, and sexuality. More specifically, the reference to blood in their works often points to racial and sexual abjection, to the black ancestry, the family line, and the ethnic bonds of the protagonists, as well as to a transgressive sexuality and a possibility of nurturance, providing specific discussions about race, ethnicity, and sexuality from the perspective of black women in a contemporary context. Their works imagine a world in which the black race, the ethnicities of African origin, female sexuality, and maternity have a fundamental role for the future of humanity, contradicting, therefore, age-old and prejudiced racist and sexist discourses. RESUMO Esta tese investiga como as questões de raça, etnia e sexualidade são discutidas no romance Fledgling (2006) de Octavia Butler, no romance Brown Girl in the Ring (1998) e no conto “Greedy Choke Puppy” (2001) de Nalo Hopkinson, e no romance The Living Blood (2001) de Tananarive Due. Essas obras são exemplos de ficção especulativa, um gênero guarda-chuva que abrange outros, como ficção científica, fantasia, horror e gótico, e que critica construções sociais e a sociedade atual ao criar seres e modos de vida alternativos. Escritas por mulheres negras nos Estados Unidos e no Canadá e no final dos anos 1990 e começo dos anos 2000, as obras analisadas aqui mostram que raça, etnia e sexualidade são preocupações comuns das três autoras. Isso porque tais questões, construídas por discursos sociais e culturais que resultam em discriminação e marginalidade, estão interligadas, principalmente nas vidas e identidades de mulheres negras. Este estudo discute como Butler, Hopkinson e Due usam o simbolismo do sangue em suas representações especulativas de raça, etnia e sexualidade. Mais especificamente, a representação do sangue em suas obras aponta para a abjeção racial e sexual, para a ancestralidade negra, a linhagem familiar e os laços étnicos das personagens, bem como para uma sexualidade transgressora e para a possibilidade de sustento, oferecendo discussões específicas sobre raça, etnia e sexualidade sob a perspectiva de mulheres negras em um contexto contemporâneo. Suas obras imaginam um mundo em que a raça negra, as etnias de origem africana, a sexualidade feminina e a maternidade têm um papel fundamental para o futuro da humanidade, contradizendo, dessa forma, discursos racistas e sexistas ultrapassados e preconceituosos. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 In the Blood: Reading Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality ..................................... 15 1. Race and Ethnicity ........................................................................................................ 15 1.1. Notions of Race ..................................................................................................... 16 1.2. The Use of Ethnicity .............................................................................................. 23 1.3. The Cultural Contexts: Racial and Ethnic Relations in the United States, in Canada, and in the Caribbean ........................................................................................... 29 1.4. The Issue of Racial/Ethnic Identity ....................................................................... 36 1.5. Race and Ethnicity in Literature ............................................................................ 46 2. Sexuality ....................................................................................................................... 48 2.1. Towards a Definition of Sexuality......................................................................... 49 2.2. The Interrelation of Sexuality and Race ................................................................ 55 3. The Black Women’s Perspective .................................................................................. 60 4. Speculative Fiction........................................................................................................ 62 5. Blood ............................................................................................................................. 70 CHAPTER 2 Blood Bonds: Reading Race and Ethnicity ...................................................... 78 1. Blood and Notions of Race and Ethnicity..................................................................... 79 2. Racial and Ethnic Identities ........................................................................................ 113 3. Blood and Community Bonds ..................................................................................... 127 4. Racialized Speculative Nova ....................................................................................... 133 CHAPTER 3 Blood Lust and Nurturance: Reading Black Women’s Sexuality .................

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