MASTERARBEIT / MASTER’S THESIS

Titel der Masterarbeit / Title of the Master‘s Thesis „Voices, Dialog, and Life Writing: A Study of Biographical Texts about Nina Simone and Thelonious Monk“

verfasst von / submitted by Peter Georg Robin Heldt, B.A.

angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (MA)

Wien, 2019 / Vienna 2019

Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 066 840 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt / Anglophone Literatures and Cultures degree programme as it appears on the student record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Alexandra Ganser-Blumenau

Acknowledgments

After years of studying and reading books, my journey finally comes to an end. My time at the University of Vienna has been inspiring and I am thankful for everyone who accompanied me along the way. At this point, I would like to thank my supervisor, Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Alexandra Ganser-Blumenau, for her support and input. I would also like to express my gratitude for Professor Robin D. G. Kelley whose answers to my e-mail questionnaire were a valuable contribution to my work. I dedicate this thesis to my parents who always supported me and encouraged me to be curious, creative, and open-minded. Further, I would like to thank my brothers with whom I shared many laughter and who reminded me that life is not always serious business. I am deeply grateful for everything.

Vienna, January 2019

Table of Contents 1. Introduction...... 1 2. Theorizing Biographies...... 5 2.1 Life Writing and Biography Studies...... 6 2.2 Mikhail Bakhtin: Dialogism and Heteroglossia...... 12 2.3 Black Feminism and Intersectionality ...... 17 3. Contextualizing Jazz Music...... 25 4. What Happened, Miss Simone?...... 28 5. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original...... 47 6. Comparison: Shared or Unique Experience?...... 68 7. Conclusion...... 72 8. Bibliography...... 74 9. Appendix...... 77 9.1 E-mail Correspondence with Professor Robin D. G. Kelley...... 77 9.2 Abstract German ...... 89 9.3 Abstract English...... 90

1. Introduction Jazz music can imply a multitude of different meanings – it offers a space for cultural exchange, a way of exploring creative and intellectual ideas, and a reflection of the order and disorder which surrounds and influences the music. During the last century, the genre and its composers emerged and an increasing interest was paid to the artists, their music, and their lives. Consequently and not surprisingly, several autobiographies as well as biographies on jazz personalities have been published in recent years. Among these publications are the two biographies What Happened, Miss Simone?, written by Alan Light, and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, written by Robin D. G. Kelley. Having read both books, I felt encouraged to engage in an academic analysis of both works in which I want to investigate how these biographies create and mediate their biographical subjects. The composition of the biographical text has evoked my curiosity since it incorporates historical accounts, textual descriptions of music, and the guiding voice of the author. This combination of sources suggests an approach connected to cultural studies, biography studies, and black feminism. I set out to explore how my primary sources construct a single narrative voice or incorporate multiple, possibly conflicting, voices. Further, the aim of my research is to analyze the relationship between the voice of the author, the mediated voice of his or her subject, and of a collective subject group, for example, of women, jazz musicians, or African Americans. Hopefully, my study will contribute to understand how readers and authors alike construct images of narrated lives in the 21st century. In addition to that, my thesis should answer the question how biographers negotiate a multitude of voices and what this indicates about current discourses on race, power, and gender. The idea behind the selection of my primary sources is to create a balance in terms of ethnicity and gender between the biographers and their subjects. The following chapters focus on theoretical ideas and concepts to approach the research topic, background information on jazz music, a thorough analysis of both primary sources, a comparison of the results, as well as a final and conclusive part. The theoretical chapter constitutes the foundation of my analysis and will cover approaches used in biography studies, Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas of dialogism and heteroglossia, along with black feminism and its concept of intersectionality. A short chapter about jazz will present information on the historical and social context of the genre as well as on an intergenerational dimension. Moreover, I will highlight how political protest and jazz are connected and how music, as a

1 cultural product, can work as a form of resistance against social and racial injustice. Subsequently, the following two chapters will link the theory to the biographies What Happened, Miss Simone? and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. The results will then be compared and interpreted in order to highlight differences in the construction of the biographical subject. My research sets out to answer the question how current discourses of power, gender, and race are reflected and even reproduced in contemporary jazz biographies. In the last chapter, I will shortly summarize the main findings, insights, and results of my work. Before moving on to the theory part of the thesis, I want to use the remaining space of the introduction to discuss the present state of autobiography and biography studies. In their article “Introduction: Auto/Biography in Transit,” Jason Breiter, Orly Lael Natzer, Julie Rak, and Lucinda Rasmussen suggest that the research field of life writing is in a constant state of flux. Currently, scholars are concerned with numerous areas of research, “including the study of translation, migration, borders, displacement, and most recently, of online ways to construct and represent identities” (Breiter et al. vi). This quote reflects that technological progress along with a dynamic social environment have an effect on the research field which makes a fixed definition of research topics impractical. Further, these developments display that the construction of the self and ideas of representation can change through different circumstances. With regard to autobiographies and biographies, the authors state that “[t]he field of life writing has always recognized the importance of narrative forms, and that cultural producers make the lives they create, rather than simply represent them” (Breiter et al. vi). In that sense, biographers do not present or reflect the true self of a person but construct a textual persona which is shaped by linguistic choices and the interpretation of sources. “Looking Forward: The Futures of Auto | Biography Studies,” written by Emily Hipchen and Ricia Anne Chansky, is another article discussing developments in life writing studies. According to the authors, their publication should be understood as “a collaborative and inclusive dialogic space that gives established and emerging scholars from multiple disciplines the time and space to enter into lively discourse on [...] possible futures” (Hipchen and Chansky 139). This indicates that the future of the research field is shaped by an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. Both articles agree on the fact that autobiography and biography studies are constantly developing. Writing about the

2 commercial aspect of publishing, Philip Holden regards “the worldly text not as a document to be read in isolation but as part of a large assemblage that includes processes of production, consumption and subjectification on a global scale” (Holden qtd. in Hipchen and Chansky 142)1. To gain a better understanding of the text and its interrelations, Holden proposes to investigate the context in which a biographical work is created. A book published by a university press, for example, might have a more scholarly preface or cover text than a book promoted by a commercial publishing house. This leads to the question of consumption and readership which are factors that undeniably have an effect on sales. From my point of view, it is crucial to be aware of the production mechanisms of publishing houses because they influence the content of a book and explain the manner in which information is presented. Relating to the issue of mediation, Hipchen and Chansky ask the questions: “who mediates, how is a text mediated, what changes because of mediation, how can we measure or examine those changes?” (144). This list of questions is a good starting point to analyze biographical writing since they link power, voice, and modes of representation. Considering the topic of jazz biographies, it would be well worth investigating what happens to music, an auditory medium of self expression, when it gets described and mediated textually. For the analysis of life writing, the concept of dialogism and heteroglossia is an indispensable tool which was coined by the Russian theorist and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (see Karpinski 201-202). With her article “'Broken Dialogues,' or Finding Bakhtin in Auto | Biography Studies,” Eva C. Karpinski examines how Mikhail Bakhtin contributed to the academic field of auto/biography studies and how his theories can be applied to biographical texts. The author references Bakhtin's The Dialogic Imagination in which he discusses how the genre of the novel best represents multivocality in writing (see Karpinski 201). Karpinski emphasizes that “Bakhtin's theories are informed by the principle of dialogism, which operates both as an epistemological standpoint (of dialogizing) and an ontological premise that everything, from a single utterance to the social world, is structured in and as dialogue” (Karpinski 201). This quote makes two important points. First, human beings have to be in some kind of dialog to generate knowledge and to make sense of the world. Second, every act of speech and human interaction communicates and participates in dialog. Consequently, even an inanimate object, such as a book or painting, can convey meaning and cultural significance. Following Bakhtin's logic, the biographical text does not work with a single and monovocal narrative 1 Holden is cited in the article but does not appear in the bibliography of Hipchen and Chansky.

3 voice but with multiple voices which engage in a dialog. This approach allows for an analysis of all inherent voices of a text: the voices of the past, present, and future as well as the voices of social and ideological discourse (see Karpinski 202). The author of the article states: “What is particularly important for theories of auto|biography is that Bakhtin's philosophy of dialogism repositions the human subject as relational rather than sovereign and autonomous. The self is relational in a double sense, by virtue of being nonunitary and constituted through others” (Karpinski 202). According to Karpinski, the individual is shaped through ideologies and discourses which relates his or her viewpoints to society. Since language and society constitute an ever-changing frame, the self is constantly developing, which makes his or her utterances dependent on a fixed context. “Consistent with this view is also [Bakhtin's] warning against reducing individuals into 'sociohistorical categories' […], which might be seen as one of the pitfalls of reading life writing through identity politics” (Bakhtin qtd. in Karpinski 202). Concerning this quote, I agree with the statement regarding the problematic use of rigid identity categories. They contradict the fact that the historical, the political, the social, and thus the ideological are permanently shifting. The theories and concepts of Mikhail Bakhtin are helpful tools for analyzing life writing: through them, it is possible to discern the voices inside and outside the biographical text. A further perspective on life writing is presented in an article by Tanya Evans and Robert Reynolds. It was published in the journal Australian Historical Studies. In their introduction to a special issue on “Biography and Life-Writing,” the authors examine how the genre can be studied from a historian's point of view. My intention here is not to present a historical reading of my primary sources but to find aspects that could help me to approach both biographies. Considering that Robin D. G. Kelley, the author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, is a professor of U.S. history at UCLA, it might be interesting to find differences in writing between a historian and a non-historian biographer. At the beginning of their article, Evans and Reynolds state: At a very simple level, biography is the thorough research and writing of a life or lives other than our own. Historians have usually approached the writing of biography with a keen eye on social context and armed with historical questions […]. In contrast, other biographers, who are not historians, have usually focussed exclusively on the life of an individual to the detriment of all else. (Evans and Reynolds 1)

Kelley emphasizes historical events, social movements, and musical influences, which are used to put the musician Thelonious Monk into context. Approaching life writing as an

4 historian can be both rewarding and risky. On the one hand, biographies tell the life story of an individual and implicitly offer the possibility to give marginalized population groups a voice and agency. On the other hand, authors should be careful with the construction of biographical subjects since writing about another person's life is an act of representation and thus linked to responsibility and interpretative authority. As a researcher, I am interested in finding out whether the authors of my primary sources are able to promote the voices of marginalized population groups or neglect these in favor of their biographical subjects. Having discussed the present state of autobiography and biography studies, the subsequent chapter will highlight theoretical ideas which will then be used in the analysis of What Happened, Miss Simone? and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. As for the introduction, I hope to have clarified my research aim, the structure of my thesis, and the importance of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories for the research field of life writing.

2. Theorizing Biographies This chapter will discuss theoretical ideas and will give examples how these can be applied to the biographies of Alan Light and Robin D. G. Kelley. My intention is to combine secondary sources in a manner that allows for an analysis which offers multiple perspectives and flexibility. To be more precise, the chapter will provide criteria that are fundamental in examining the construction of the biographical subject. Moreover, multivocality according to Bakhtin and the concept of intersectionality will be highlighted as well. Using Bakhtin's theory, I will point out how multivocality relates to the constructiveness of the biographical text and its implicit social voices. As mentioned in the introduction, these voice can be regarded as a point of reference bound by its cultural, social, and historical situatedness. Regarding the selected theory, I expect to gain insights which reflect the various perspectives through which biographies can be analyzed. Studying What Happened, Miss Simone? and Thelonious Monk, I will focus on the biographers and their impact on the construction of the subject. For that reason, it is crucial to pay close attention to linguistic choices, argumentation, and issues of representation. Because of its many influences, biographies are essentially hybrid objects which merge a multitude of social and historical voices into a single narrative.

5 2.1 Life Writing and Biography Studies Michael Benton's Literary Biography: An Introduction, published in 2009, is a useful starting point to approach the literary genre of biography. In chapter three of his book, the author defines the relationship and influences between biographer, biography, and reader. Benton begins the chapter with an explanation of biography which is a hybrid genre since it combines factual information about a living or dead person with narrative elements. The task of the biographer lies in the balancing act of fusing the information and his or her narrative into an apparently homogeneous literary work (see Benton 35). Describing the role of the biographer, Benton refers to ideas by Richard Holmes. The latter links the writing experience of a biography to two processes: the pursuit and the haunting. The first “is a 'tracking of the physical trail of someone's path through the past, a following of footsteps',” and the second relates to the power of the biographical subject which “haunts the biographer's imagination” (Holmes qtd. in Benton 35). The second step indicates that there is “a fictional or imaginary relationship between the biographer and his subject” which resembles “a continuous living dialogue between the two” (Holmes qtd. in Benton 36). Consequently, the genre of biography can be best characterized by its subjectivity and inherent dialog. It signifies that biography is a genre which invites the author to interpret, evaluate, and create. Benton highlights the multitude of biographical writings and suggests to think about “'documentary biography'” and “'aesthetic biography'” as opposing positions (Benton 37). These categories should not be understood as binary but rather as anchoring points on a scale which allows for variety. The author continues to analyze the twofold communication in biographical texts. With regards to this examination, Michael Benton identifies the two components as the “representing of a particular life story” and “the [different] ways of telling” a story (Benton 38). Both elements can be seen as unstable since modes of representation and narration are cultural constructs which are incessantly reshaped and redefined by various discourses. Near the end of chapter three, Benton discusses problems connected to the hybrid forms of biographies. Relating to these issues, the author writes: “This interpenetration of history and narrative destabilises biography in two particular areas: in the plausibility of its development of historical data within the time-frame of the subject's life; and in its uncertainty once it shifts from recording the exterior of actions and events to the inner life of

6 the subject's mind and feeling” (Benton 42-43). This quote makes clear that the biographer might be able to trace historical data; however, he or she remains unable to retell the story of the subject from an internal perspective. Referring back to “'documentary biography'” and “'aesthetic biography,'” the author notes that the first “may yield to the temptation to misuse time-specific data” and the second might “shift into the novelistic mode” (Benton 45). In doing so, he points out the difficulties of the biographer to balance his or her text with regards to content and aesthetics. Due to subjective choices and interpretation, the biographer constructs a text which reflects the past life of an individual as well as its reinterpretation in the present (see Benton 46). Another scholarly work that contributes to a better understanding of life writing is Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives by Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson. In their book, the authors provide definitions, explanations, and ideas on how to analyze life writing. Closely examined, it is possible to apply some thoughts of autobiographical research to the study of biographies. First, some terminology and clarification. Life writing is a broad and general term which includes a set of texts that are concerned with life and its stories (see Smith and Watson 3). A term with a more specific meaning would be life narrative which “includes many kinds of self-referential writing, including autobiography” (Smith and Watson 3). It is important to note that life narrative and biography are not to be used synonymously since there are considerable differences between both forms. The main difference lies in the element of narration. Regarding this point, the authors note that “[i]n biography, scholars of other people's lives document and interpret those lives from a point of view external to the subject. In life narrative people write about their own lives” (Smith and Watson 4). Therefore, the biographer needs to take two positions into consideration: his or her role as a writer and the biographical subject as an object of study (see Smith and Watson 5). Looking at the writing process, there is oftentimes a difference in time and space since the author of a biographical text writes about the life of a subject after his or her death. Biographies, written at different points in time about the same subject, can be a promising source of research since these texts provide a multitude of interpretations (see Smith and Watson 5). Aside from the element of narration, biographies and life narratives differ in the material that is used to create the text. Smith and Watson remark that “biographers incorporate multiple forms of evidence, including historical documents, interviews, and

7 family archives, which they evaluate for validity” (6). Thus, the finished biographical work can be seen as an assemblage of multiple texts which is occasionally combined with photographs. In contrast to biographers, life narrators rely on their lived experience and memory which “intersect with such rhetorical acts as assertion, justification, judgment, conviction, and interrogation” (Smith and Watson 6). As mentioned above, there are distinctions between life narrative and biography; however, contemporary texts blend both together (see Smith and Watson 7). In a biography about a jazz musician, for example, the author could comment on the writing process and on his or her position as a narrating authority. In that sense, biographies can include autobiographical elements which demonstrates that the genres are developing and relationships are more interwoven (see Smith and Watson 7). The second chapter of Reading Autobiography provides a list of concepts, namely memory, experience, identity, embodiment, and agency, which can be used in order to analyze integral parts of the autobiographical subject (see Smith and Watson 15-16). Since the selected biographies about Thelonious Monk and Nina Simone contain self-referential texts in the form of lyrics, letters, interviews, and diary entries, the information offered in Smith and Watson is valuable for this thesis. Furthermore, the listed concepts allow for an inclusion of statements made by the authors. Robin D.G. Kelley, for instance, could comment on his experience as a writer and researcher or Alan Light could give reasons in the acknowledgments why he decided to write a book on Nina Simone. Being aware of the fact that Reading Autobiography is primarily conceptualized for autobiographical texts, I want to highlight aspects of the second chapter and explain how these can be used in biography studies. Smith and Watson point out that memory links to meaning and “the act of remembering,” a sociocultural process that produces fragmented and subjective memories (16). This means that only fractions of the past constitute personal memory and make life stories or life narratives unreliable in terms of factual truth; however, they reflect public or private acts of remembering. In doing so, life writing reveals how the cultural context influences what is remembered and how something is remembered (see Smith and Watson 16). Closely connected to this point are political aspects of memory as remarked by Smith and Watson in the following quote: “What is remembered and what is forgotten, and why, change over time. Thus remembering also has a politics. There are struggles over who is authorized to

8 remember and what they are authorized to remember, struggles over what is forgotten, both personally and collectively” (18). Keeping the social, historical, and political aspects of remembering in mind, autobiographical statements can display the cultural process of memory making which can be an affirmation of or a resistance against dominant ideology (see Smith and Watson 18). Thinking about biographers, I consider it worth investigating how authority is used to negotiate the importance of certain historical events. The biography can be understood as a medium which creates and communicates memory through the assemblage of different materials and eventually becomes an object of remembering itself (see Smith and Watson 20 – 21). Another helpful tool for analyzing biographical and autobiographical sources is the concept of experience. It gets communicated through “memory and language” which makes it subjective and tied to a certain cultural and historical background (see Smith and Watson 24). Moreover, it is an indispensable part of identity construction that tells the experiencing subject who he or she is. Undeniably, fixed identity categories contradict the fact that experiences and subjects can be manifold or non-conforming to concepts. An argumentation based on fixed categories might be criticized since such a point of view is prone to include essentialist views which can be disproved as naturalistic fallacy. Coming back to the concept of experience, the authors note that autobiographies and biographies establish identities through experiences and memories via the act of storytelling (see Smith and Watson 26). As mentioned with regards to remembering and authority, the same applies to experience. The name of a famous person on the cover of a book suggests authenticity and reliability (see Smith and Watson 27); in other words, the reader expects the writer to have authority over the experience present in the text. According to Smith and Watson, the name of a renowned author on the front cover counts as an implicit claim for authority, whereas “persons outside the dominant culture, persons unknown and marginalized” usually have to claim their authority explicitly (28). This indicates that experience, just like memory, is socially and culturally constructed since authority is granted to some, while others have to struggle for it. Referring to What Happened, Miss Simone? A Biography and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, it will be interesting to see how Kelley and Light employ their authority. Similar to memory, the concepts of identity and agency are linked to power. The first is “marked in terms of many categories: gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, class,

9 generation, family genealogy, and religious and political ideologies, to cite the most obvious” (Smith and Watson 33). Referring to Joan W. Scott, the authors define identities as unstable, changing, and interfering with each other (Scott qtd. in Smith and Watson 33). This means that overlap between identity categories is possible and in some cases leads to tensions or conflicts for the individual with its social environment. Conflicting identity categories should not be understood as an inability of the individual to adjust to certain circumstances but rather as evidence for the instability of these categories. To exemplify the discursiveness of the concept, Smith and Watson cite The Dialogic Imagination by Mikhail Bakhtin, a theorist and philosopher, who establishes a connection between identity and consciousness (see Smith and Watson 33 – 34). The authors state that “because of what Bakhtin calls 'heteroglossia' in the social realm, the multiplicity of languages, words, and meanings that 'mutually supplement one another, contradict one another and [are] interrelated dialogically' (292), the subject comes to consciousness through multiple identities and multiple voices” (Bakhtin qtd. in Smith and Watson 34). This quote displays that individuals create identities through actions within the discursive framework of language. Since languages get continuously altered and modified, identities should be regarded as inconsistent. In reference to the analysis of my primary sources, I prefer to utilize the term 'persona' because it reveals that the biographical subject and its identities are contextual and temporary. A case in point is The Autobiography of Malcolm X, in which the narrating subject maneuvers through different roles and personas (see Smith and Watson 35). What has been mentioned earlier as an overlap of identities is often referred to as intersectionality. Similar “terms are mixed-race, marginal, migratory, diasporic, multicultural, minoritized, mestiza, and nomadic” (Smith and Watson 37). These definitions illustrate that identity categories are interlocking and that the study of those has considerable academic value. To conduct an in-depth analysis of autobiographical or biographical texts, agency is another important concept because it describes the extent to which a person can make free choices and exercise power over his or her own life (see Smith and Watson 42). Concerning this matter, Louis Althusser observes that “the subject is a subject of ideology – not in the narrow sense of propaganda but in the broad sense of the pervasive cultural formations of the dominant class” (qtd. in Smith and Watson 42). According to the theorist, the idea of free will is misleading since “[t]he concept of 'free will' is itself embedded in a discourse about the Enlightenment individual, a historically specific discourse through which subjects understand

10 themselves as intellectually mature and free to make their own choices” (qtd. in Smith and Watson 43). Therefore, agency is only attainable for subjects who operate within a discourse which allows them to exercise power over themselves and their choices. In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler specifies this circumstance as “the 'performativity' of subjectivity,” which means that “identity is enacted daily through socially enforced norms that surround us” (Butler qtd. in Smith and Watson 44). Since it is impossible to adhere to all social norms, the individual is likely to fail while coping with role expectations which suggests that “the rules that govern intelligible identity” should be more open to diversification (Butler qtd. in Smith and Watson 44). As for What Happened, Miss Simone? and Thelonious Monk, the question is how the biographical subjects convey a sense of agency and how the authors limit or reinforce that impression by describing their subjects as inferior or superior to their environment. It is important to stress that biographies are constructed and thus do not account for historical accuracy. If a biographical subject appears to have little agency and seems inferior to his or her surroundings, it is because of the author's imagination and not because of historical facts. In this respect, the interpretation and imagination of the writer represents an act of authority and has a significant impact on how the biographical subject is perceived by the readership. At the end of the second chapter in Reading Autobiography, Smith and Watson conclude: Readers often conceive of autobiographical narrators as telling unified stories of their lives, as creating or discovering coherent selves. But both the unified story and the coherent self are myths of identity. For there is no coherent 'self' that predates stories about identity, about 'who' one is. Nor is there a unified, stable immutable self that can remember everything that has happened in the past. We are always fragmented in time, taking a particular or provisional perspective on the moving target of our pasts, addressing multiple and disparate audiences. (47)

In sum, autobiographical and biographical texts are more complex than generally assumed. They include concepts such as memory, experience, identity, and agency. Embodiment is another crucial concept since “[t]he body is a site of autobiographical knowledge” and “is situated at a the nexus of language, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, and other specificities” (Smith and Watson 37-38). Because of its anatomy and cultural situatedness, the body possesses a representative function which means that bodies can “engage, contest, and revise cultural norms” (Smith and Watson 41-42). Thus, embodiment is closely connected to culture -specific meaning and issues of representation.

11 The aforementioned concepts clearly show that it is crucial to contextualize biographies and to identify the forces that shape the texts. By revealing these influences, it is possible to draw conclusions in relation to the cultural, social, historical, and political framework in which the narrative is placed. Complementary to that, Mikhail Bakhtin and his concepts offer another perspective on biographical writing.

2.2 Mikhail Bakhtin: Dialogism and Heteroglossia In “'Broken Dialogues,' or Finding Bakhtin in Auto|Biography Studies,” Karpinski observes that “[Bakhtin's] ideas resonate with Smith and Watson's approach in Reading Autobiography, where they propose a dialogical conception of the autobiographical subject that runs counter to a tendency to monologize the living voice and challenge the vision of the autonomous, single, unitary consciousness as the signatory of the auto|biographical contract” (203). This quote illustrates two facts. First, Mikhail Bakhtin's concepts and ideas are still used by contemporary researchers and scholars; and second, the importance of dialog is omnipresent and indicates the plurality of voices in a biographical text. The advantage of reading a text through the principle of dialogism is “a participatory orientation toward listening without mastery or fusion and an openness to other discourses, meanings, and viewpoints” (Karpinski 203). This approach enables the reader to understand the text at hand from multiple points of view and allows for different interpretations. Concerning this matter, Karpinski states that “conflict, contradiction, and ambivalence are inescapable dynamics of this dialogic relationality that animates language, which Bakhtin views in terms of the incessant push and pull of the centrifugal, heterogenizing forces and centripetal, homogenizing forces” (203- 204). As remarked earlier, tensions do not necessarily imply a negative meaning; rather they should be seen as indicators for competing discourses and identities within a text. With her article, Karpinski transfers the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin into the 21st-century and communicates how his theories could be applied in contemporary research. Before examining arguments from The Dialogic Imagination in greater detail, it is fundamental to have a basic understanding of the technical vocabulary used in the book. As noted in the glossary by the translators Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, Bakhtin utilizes complex terms to describe his concepts of dialogism and heteroglossia (see 423). The first one can be described as the “epistemological mode of a world dominated by heteroglossia” which functions through a continuous exchange of meanings and which

12 presupposes “the per-existence of the language world” (Bakhtin 426). According to this concept, the speaker can only understand the world in terms of meaning and knowledge when he or she participates in a form of dialog. The basis of Bakhtin's construct is the assumption that there is a given and already existing language on which the speaker can rely. To exemplify the principle of dialogism, Bakhtin refers to the literary genre of the novel stating that it is “a microcosm of heteroglossia” and representative for “all the social and ideological voices of its era” (411). Through the eyes of the Russian theorist, books or literary works reflect the multiplicity of voices in a certain period of time. Though Bakhtin favors the novel as a prime example of language diversity, he links lyricism to more monological forms of expression (see Henderson). For him, the stylistic conventions of poetry and the limitations of traditional genres, such as “tragedy” or “the Homeric epic”, represent factors that are “'authoritarian, dogmatic, and conservative, sealing [themselves] off from the influences of literary social dialects'” (Bakhtin qtd. in Henderson). Consequently, these cultural texts are homogeneous in the sense that they are resistant to modification and incorporation of new elements. Nevertheless, for Bakhtin, there is no entirely monological utterance, text, or genre since human communication “is structured in and as dialogue” (Karpinski 201). Heteroglossia can be understood as the framework which allows meaning to evolve from utterances. Corresponding to The Dialogic Imagination, heteroglossia is “the primacy of context over text” as well as “a set of conditions – social, historical, meteorological, physiological – that will insure that a word uttered in that place and at that time will have a meaning different than it would have under any conditions” (Bakhtin 428). Further, heteroglossia is the place “where centripetal and centrifugal forces collide; as such it is that which a systematic linguistic must always suppress” (Bakhtin 428). The concept displays that utterances and texts are situated in and dependent on their context which has a significant impact on their meaning. Centripetal and centrifugal forces incessantly shape and transform languages: “there is a ceaseless battle between, on the one hand, the centrifugal and counter- hegemonic forces that seek to rip things asunder and challenge the unitary language or dominant discourse of a given society and, on the other, the centripetal and hegemonic forces that seek to hold things together and sustain the status quo” (Henderson). With this quote, Greig Henderson highlights the political and discursive nature of the powers that form the context of language use, a context which is continuously changing. Referring back to heteroglossia, Bakhtin states that languages, including social dialects, can only exist in

13 relation to each other in order to have social relevance (see Bakhtin 411). He writes that “[e]very language in the novel is a point of view, a socio-ideological conceptual system of real social groups and their embodied representatives” (411). Being aware of heteroglossia and language as dependent on the historical context, researchers are enable to detect the inherent voices of a text and how they relate to socio-ideological positions. To be more specific, Bakhtin's theory can be used as a tool to identify certain aspects or voices of a text as counter-hegemonic or hegemonic, within the dominant culture or outside of it. The Dialogic Imagination provides further helpful terms for analyzing life writing, namely authoritative discourse, hybridization, and orchestration. The former represents the dominance of a discourse over an individual who may feel a conflict between his or her “internally-persuasive discourse” and the dominant one which is not open to modification (Bakhtin 424). Depending on the degree of influence, the authoritative discourse postulates ideological views through which the individual perceives the world (see Bakhtin 342). In contrast to that, the “internally-persuasive discourse” defines how a person might negotiate, reinterpret, and describe his or her surroundings in words of one's own (see Bakhtin 342, 424). According to Bakhtin, tensions between the individualized perception of the world and socially dominant discourses constitute “the history of an individual ideological consciousness” (342). These conflicts then indicate that the authoritative discourse is not isolated from influences and can lose its power once the cultural and social framework changes. With respect to autobiographical and biographical texts, it makes sense to identify the dominant religious, political, and cultural discourses and examine whether they have been internalized, modified, or rejected by the subject. As for biographies, I assume that this task can be challenging since the meaning and relevance of discourse is constantly changing. Therefore, an analysis must be dependent on a specific historic moment. Another term used by Mikhail Bakhtin is hybridization, which can be understood as “[t]he mixing, within a single concrete utterance, of two or more different linguistic consciousnesses, often widely separated in time and social space” (Bakhtin 429). The author elaborates that “it is obligatory for two linguistic consciousnesses to be present, the one being represented and the other doing the representing, with each belonging to a different system of language” (359). Because hybridization acknowledges two or more linguistic consciousnesses and their intentions, this term can be used as a tool for analyzing biographies. Especially, the fact that Mikhail Bakhtin recognizes consciousnesses as representing and represented is an

14 essential distinction that allows the reader to discover the historical and social distance between the author and the biographical subject. Talking about the advantages of hybrid texts, the Russian theorist highlights that hybrids are “profoundly productive historically” and convey “potential for new world views” because of their double-voicedness (Bakhtin 360). From this point of view, biographies epitomize the transition between past, present, and changing perceptions of the world. Orchestration is a word often associated with studies of classical music. For Bakhtin, it is also applicable to literature and mirrors the polyphony of social voices which is present in text form. Moreover, the term orchestration relates to the arrangement and structure of a text and shows how voices can be employed in different ways (see Bakhtin 430-431). Emerson and Holquist add that “[t]he possibilities of orchestration make any segment of text almost infinitely variable” (431). Consequently, it is possible to analyze biographies and refer to musical language in order to examine text passages in terms of dissonance, resonance, and harmony. This means that Bakhtin's adaption of the term allows for the assessment and labeling of interrelations between voices and their context. Researchers of biography studies could use this idea to become more aware of the constructiveness of the literary work, its assemblage, its tensions, and its inner balance. Dissonance, for example, exists in instances in which the author's voice collides with the voices of the biographical subject which could indicate a struggle over representation and authority. Resonance means that two or more voices share the same point of view, amplify each other, and repress differing opinions. Last but not least, harmony describes the foundation which creates the context for all inherent voices of a text (see Bakhtin 431). Depending on the constructed framework, voices and utterances can differ in relevance, meaning, and purpose. “Dialogism Versus Monologism: Burke, Bakhtin, and the Languages of Social Change,” Henderson compares Kenneth Burke's ideas to Bakhtin's. Henderson discusses to which degree the theorists can be seen as advocates of dialogism and finds valid points of criticism. For him, Burke as well as Bakhtin clearly recognize “that linguistic and social change are intertwined” and that “history is an unending conversation” (Henderson). According to the author, Bakhtin's criticism of The Dialogic Imagination aims at questioning hegemonic structures in language and should reveal dominant ideologies through the concept of dialogism and heteroglossia (see Henderson). Taking Burke and Bakhtin into account, Henderson regards language as “essentially dialogical” and refers to Valentin Voloshinov

15 who says that “'[the word] is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant. A word is a territory shared by both addresser and addressee, the speaker and his interlocutor”' (Voloshinov qtd. in Henderson). Hence, meaning and knowledge are generated in dialog and dependent on the intention of the speaker as well as on the reception of the dialog partner. Corresponding to heteroglossia, this process is further influenced by the context along with centrifugal and centripetal forces which shape language. That is why, being aware of the dialogic context is essential in understanding the implicit ideologies of a text. Referring to Bakhtin's writing style, the author of “Dialogism Versus Monologism” expresses criticism by saying that: Utterly convinced that dialogic novelistic style is superior to monologic poetic style, Bakhtin talks like a dogmatic authoritarian […]. In the terrifying darkness of Russia's seemingly endless Stalinist night, it is no wonder that Bakhtin is so passionately opposed to monologic speech. But it nevertheless remains the case that his own critical style, rather than embracing dialogism, is incessantly monological. This is not to say that an argument in favor of dialogism necessarily has to be made in a dialogical style. (Henderson)

Henderson acknowledges Bakhtin's advocacy of dialogism and his concepts; however, the Russian theorist could be attacked on the grounds that his style tends to be monological. The author continues his critique stating that “Bakhtin's theory […] hinges on this binary distinction between dialogism and monologism, a distinction that is really a matter of degree rather than kind, even if he himself sometimes speaks as if it were categorical” (Henderson). According to Henderson, it is ironic that The Dialogic Imagination promotes a multiplicity of voices and at the same time limits its inclusiveness through its academic style. A related point of critique is that “[Bakhtin] unrelentingly argues that prose is dialogical, polyphonic, and therefore authentic, whereas poetry is monological, univocal, and therefore inauthentic even if according to his own theory of language, no discourse can ever be absolutely monologic” (Henderson). This observation shows a contradiction in Bakhtin's argumentation and makes two important points. First, no genre or text can be entirely monological since every kind of communication process involves at least two people or more; and second, fixed categories and binary distinctions fail to cover experiences and dialogues outside their defined boundaries. Despite the legitimate criticism, The Dialogic Imagination provides appropriate tools for analyzing biographies. Bakhtin's examination of the novel reflects how the genre “runs counter to the dominant discourse of a given social order” by incorporating a number of social voices that “function as the continuous critique of all totalizing discourses and ideologies,

16 including its own” (Henderson). Through its multivocality, the novel challenges and contests seemingly given hegemonic structures as well as the idea of stability and unity in terms of identity and experience. Since life writing works with multiple voices and histories, it is worth drawing parallels between Bakhtin's study of the novel and biographies. Concerning this matter, Karpinski adds that “life writing resonates with the voices and ideas of the past, is imbued with the dominant and oppositional voices and ideas of the time, and contains the emergent voices and ideas of the future” (202). Because of their historical and cultural situatedness, both the novel and biography alike are objects of study that indicate which discourses are prevalent in a society at a certain time. Another similarity between novel and biography is hybridization. As explained earlier, the term suggests that a text is comprised of two of more linguistic consciousnesses which can be mixed and are crucial for the act of representation. Having discussed Mikhail Bakhtin's The Dialogic Imagination, the following sub- chapter will present thoughts of black feminism and will foreground the concept of intersectionality. By incorporating these arguments in the theory part of my thesis, I gain insights which allow me to critically assess my primary sources with regards to the representation of African American men and women. Since both biographies were written by men, it is worth investigating how they negotiate issues of authority, agency, identity, and female experience. Because some of these terms have already been discussed, I will come back to established definitions and refine them with ideas of black feminism. Especially, with respect to the biography What Happened, Miss Simone?, I consider the subsequent part to be vital for an analysis of Nina Simone's persona. As for Thelonious Monk, I want to find out whether the author uses African American women as background figures or if he pictures them as self-determined and strong characters which have relevance in his narrative about Monk.

2.3 Black Feminism and Intersectionality One of the most renowned advocates of Black feminism is bell hooks, who has contributed to the movement through her writings and her own experiences as a woman of color. Her article “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,” published in 1984, makes clear why the development of a black feminism was inevitable and more than necessary.

17 In her article, hooks explains that second-wave feminism in the United States was mostly concerned with the issues of white middle-class women. By way of example, she criticizes Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, which “did not speak of the needs of women without men, without children, without homes” and “ignored the existence of all non- white women and poor white women” (hooks 60). According to hooks, the main problem is that “[Friedan] deflected attention away from her classism, her racism, her sexist attitudes towards the masses of American women” (60). Through her critique, the African American theorist uncovers how second-wave feminism struggled with its internal structures that reproduced patriarchal power relationships as well as social hierarchies. During that period, white privileged feminists claimed authority to speak on behalf of all women and thereby positioned themselves above other groups of women. It must be pointed out that hooks did not intend to discredit Betty Friedan's contribution to feminism, but to shed light on a problem within the discourse (see hooks 61). In “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,” bell hooks recognizes the danger that arises through the process which turns a flexible theory into a dogmatic ideology which is unable to incorporate new experiences, insights, or perspectives (see hooks 64-65). For that reason, she argues for a feminism which is inclusive of all women, does not ignore issues related to academic privilege, and acknowledges “the inter-relatedness of sex, race, and class oppression” (hooks 67). By voicing her criticism, hooks shows the importance of an inclusive feminist discourse as well as an awareness of the oppressive systems which confine the lives of African American women and other women. Isaac Martel Carter's dissertation studies the different traditions and practices of black feminism and zooms in on musical productions of Nina Simone and Me’shell Ndegéocello. Carter points out that the black feminist resistance did not emerge from first- or second-wave feminism but has its roots in a tradition of protest that is connected to the times of slavery and colonialism (see Carter 17). To explain the origins of this resistance, Carter refers to Patricia Hill's Black Feminist Thought which makes the point that “[t]he legacy of Black feminism and its historical antecedents lie in the deeds of the first Black women to resist colonialism and slavery, as well as their methods and practices of knowledge production“ (Collins qtd. in Carter 15). This quote shows that early opposition against patriarchal ideology of white colonizers was achieved through a distinct generation of knowledge that can be described as epistemology. Thus, African American women possessed an alternative way to understand the world around them and to defy colonial belief systems (see Collins qtd. in Carter 21).

18 With regards to the necessity of the movement, the author states: “The Black feminist movement in the United States during the late 1960s and the early 1970s was a necessary insurrection for Black women’s activism, which was constantly compromised by the Black Liberation Movement, dominated by Black men, and the Women’s movement, dominated by White women” (Carter 17). Consequently, the movement was needed in order to gain power over matters of representation and to make the experience as well as the existence of colored women visible. Nowadays, black feminism helps to identify the various systems of oppression and their interrelations; which stabilize westernized patriarchal hegemony. To tackle unjust conditions, two key concepts should be named: intersectionality and epistemology. The first “reflects a transdisciplinary theory aimed at apprehending the complexity of social identities and inequalities through an integrated approach. It refutes the compartmentalization and hierarchization of the great axes of social differentiation through categories of gender/sex, class, race, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation” (Bilge 58). On a simple level, this means that the identity of an individual is intersectional and comprised of multiple categories, such as gender, class, race, sexuality, and so forth. Oppression, or social inequalities, can be experienced on the basis of one or multiple categories. In this respect, Ann Garry writes in her article “Intersectionality, Metaphors, and the Multiplicity of Gender”: “Oppression and privilege by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, nationality, and so on do not act independently of each other in our individual lives or in our social structures; instead, each kind of oppression or privilege is shaped and works through others” (827). Because of their omnipresence, privilege and oppression have a considerable influence on our lived experience, our relationships, our interests, and our identity (see Garry 827). For a thorough intersectional analysis, it is therefore crucial to find out through which categories a person is discriminated against and whether other categories seem to provide privileges. Referring to Patricia Hill Collins and her essay “On West and Fenstermaker's 'Doing Difference',” Carter explains “the simultaneity of oppression through [Hill's] concept of interlocking systems of oppression” which functions on a macro and on a micro level (Collins qtd. in Carter 19). On a macro level, intersectionality connects categories such as gender, race, class, and sexuality, to social structures, positions, and inequalities (see Collins qtd. in Carter 19). Thus, a macro- analysis of intersectionality focuses on structural issues which produce and sustain social disparities. On a micro level, the concept of intersectionality gives attention to the lived

19 experience of a person. More specifically, it describes how an individual or a population group is positioned in society and how this links to “interlocking structures of oppression” (Collins qtd. in Carter 19). In particular, the situation and experience of black women, who are historically, economically, and socially underprivileged, can be made explicit through an intersectional approach (see Carter 20). The second key concept of resistance can be termed epistemology. In Black Feminist Thought, Collins says that the “significance of a Black feminist epistemology may lie in its ability to enrich our understanding of how subordinate groups create knowledge that fosters both their empowerment and social justice” (269). As an alternative to patriarchal structures and ideologies, this kind of epistemology recognizes the uniqueness of knowledge production among African American women and incorporates diversity in form of experience, dialog, and cooperation (see Carter 21-22). It affirms and values “the unique perspective of Black women’s heterogeneity and intersectionality” which means that black women can have different experiences of oppression and can still rely on “core issues, that all Black women can acknowledge and integrate into their thought and action” (Carter 22). With regard to What Happened, Miss Simone?, it will be interesting to see whether there is textual evidence, for example, an interview or the lyrics of a song, suggesting that Nina Simone's understanding of the world is at conflict with the dominant ideology of white male America. In addition to that, it is worth investigating how Alan Light depicts Nina Simone's assimilation and resistance to dominant thought and belief systems. Another important distinction that has to be pointed out is the one between womanism and black feminism. The two concepts share points of contact; however, there are subtle differences. Both tackle social inequalities and the oppression of black women. In contrast to black feminism, womanism regards feminism as a product of white women which was developed for and by them (see Carter 24). Thus, from a womanist perspective, feminism is constructed as a white paradigm that is unable to fully capture and convey the thoughts and experiences of black women. In reference to Ain't I a Woman, Carter highlights bell hooks' position that feminism should be refashioned in a manner “to include all who are oppressed” (hooks qtd. in Carter 25). Carter clarifies the relationship between the concepts by stating that “Walker’s portrayal of womanism expresses the idea that as a theory and practice, womanism is a much deeper and broader concept that includes feminism and Black feminism while

20 remaining distinct” (Walker qtd. in Carter 22). Consequently, womanism represents a concept which is inclusive of other theories, yet it is unique in its emphasis. Coming back to a more detailed discussion of intersectionality, Ann Garry's “Intersectionality, Metaphors, and the Multiplicity of Gender” covers the advantages, disadvantages, and scope of the concept. Moreover, Garry addresses the question how to avoid problems related to the practice of categorizing. Her article responses to the increasing feminist demand to answer “questions about the limitations, implications, or slipperiness of intersectionality or [to] question its focus” (Garry 826). Speaking from the point of a researcher, only such a self-critical engagement with a concept can lead to its improvement. Regarding this point, Garry states in her abstract that “[she supports] intersectionality, cautioning against asking too much of it. It provides standards for the uses of methods or frameworks rather than theories of power, oppression, agency, or identity” (826)2. Therefore, the concept can be seen as a template that can be modified and adjusted to the needs of the subject and topic which makes it suitable for an analysis of structural, social, and individual oppression. In avoiding a dogmatic definition, the concept maintains its inclusiveness and its flexibility to adapt to different circumstances. There are numerous positive aspects of the concept which should be pointed out. First, the acknowledgment of multifaceted identities, which are “differently impacted by multiple interacting systems of oppression and privilege,” supports inclusion and works against bias in feminist discourse (Garry 827 – 828). Second, intersectionality enables feminist thought to progress through an awareness that Western philosophy has influenced the movement (see Garry 828). Third, the author highlights that “[intersectionality] points to the ways in which oppressions intermesh with each other or are used to construct each other. This can be seen both in ways they act as a structural forces and are applied to individuals” (Garry 829). Finally, the concept can also be used by privileged members of society to question their position which shows that the concept is generally applicable (see Garry 829). With regard to the limitations and scope of intersectionality, Ann Garry makes clear that these points can be controversial depending on the point of view (see 830). In her article, Garry states that she prefers the term “framework” over “methodology,” since the first implies that the concept can make use of multiple methodologies and is in this way not restricted (830). Through its framework-like nature, “it points out what kinds of analyses might be useful, namely, ones that consider mutually constructed or intermeshed axes of oppression or 2 The abstract of Ann Garry's article is written in italics.

21 facets of identities” (Garry 830). Consequently, intersectionality is neither a fixed methodology nor a theory of identity construction. Nevertheless, the concept can reveal identity as “complex, messy, and fluid,” linked to varying “degrees of intersectional intermeshing” (Garry 830). For example, a poor lesbian African American woman might be oppressed on the basis of her gender, her class, her race, and her sexuality. In the United States, her nationality might have no effect or even alleviate the oppression felt in other categories. It is important to note that these systems of oppression are interlocked and not separable from each other. Certainly, intersectionality can be criticized for its reliance on fixed categories to capture the social structures and circumstances that create social inequalities; however, this point of critique can be contested through a family resemblance model (see Garry 838 – 839). To explain the issue at hand, the problem with rigid identity categories lies in their power of definition excluding everything which does not match the selected criteria. Instead of incorporating different kinds of identities, categorization fragments the self rendering it vulnerable to manipulating forces (see Garry 838). Addressing this problem, Ann Garry proposes to work with a combination of intersectionality and a family resemblance model that includes commonalities and fluidity between identity categories (see 839). According to the author, this approach “can accommodate a wide variety of feminist positions, is anti-essentialist without the need to argue against the existence of categories [...], gives us a strategy to answer the most problematic objections to intersectionality, and provides plausible accounts of women for everyday politics” (Garry 839). Indeed, this liaison between family resemblance and intersectionality promotes an inclusive feminism that does not reproduce differences and fragmentation among women. Therefore, varieties of women can share a category without having to define themselves against other women. Just like Ann Gary, Sirma Bilge studies ideas of intersectionality. In her article “Recent Feminist Outlooks on Intersectionality,” Bilge examines the theoretical reach of the concept as well as the tension that arises through the ontological and epistemological conflict of identity categories. Concerning this matter, Bilge asks the question and comments as follows: ”Are [categories] phenomena possessing a certain degree of autonomy in relation to each other or are they inseparably interlocked with each other? Here, both ontological and epistemological questions intertwine, with some opting for definitions which bring together both the object of analysis and the way of seeing it” (Bilge 64). Epistemology describes how a

22 person views and understands the world around him or her. It gives attention to knowledge production and to the manner in which knowledge is communicated. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ontology can be understood as the study of existence and the relations of existing entities (see “Logic and Ontology”). Or to put it differently, ontology is the scholarly attempt to define the existence of a certain object of study. As earlier mentioned by Ann Garry, the strength of intersectionality lies in its inclusiveness and in its vague interpretation of identity categories (see Bilge 60). At the same time, this is a point that has been criticized by feminist theorists who “fear that the refusal to recognize a hierarchy of relations of domination may lead to relations being standardized among themselves and so generate decontextualized and anhistoric findings” (Bilge 64). The ontological question whether identity categories can exist autonomously or constitute and define each other equals a balancing act on a knife's edge. Regarding epistemology, the question is how individuals know and experience categories through relationships with other categories. While it is important to have contextualized and historically situated results, it is just as crucial to have a concept which affirms the existence of marginalized and intersectional identities. To take it one step further, Vivian M. May's article “'Speaking into the Void'? Intersectionality Critiques and Epistemic Backlash,” deals with the issue of interpretative politics and interpretive biases. In relation to her undertaking, May names a list of problems that must be taken into account: “hermeneutic marginalization and interpretive violence; the impact of power on the politics of writing and understanding; and the influence of established social imaginaries on meaning-making” (95). All these issues should be considered when writing or reading about African American women. As May continues, she states that “it is essential to account for how knowledge derived from and crafted in marginalized locations entails a double struggle: the struggle to articulate what cannot necessarily be told in conventional terms, and the struggle to be heard without being (mis)translated into normative logics that occlude the meanings at hand“ (99). For this reason, one task of black feminism and intersectionality is to present and analyze the situation of marginalized and oppressed women in a manner that does not distort reality and gives credit to alternative forms of knowledge production. Interpretative problems can occur when a binary, such as “context versus identity,” is applied to intersectionality since “either/or logics” are in conflict with the concept's “'both/and'” perspective (May 102-103). Rather than seeing identity categories, lived experience, and social structures in isolation, it is fundamental to acknowledge the

23 interconnections between individuals and social structures of power and oppression (see May 103). With respect to this observation, May states: “Intersectionality can be considered one example of counter-hegemonic knowledge, crafted 'interstitially' – in spaces between dominant frames – and fashioned within (and across) marginalized locations” (99). To avoid interpretative biases as far as possible, researchers should not prioritize one category over another and should work with an approach that allows for a simultaneous examination of interlocking categories (see May 107). In doing so, conceptions of dominant ideology can be bypassed and put into question. The intention behind the selection of articles about black feminism is to present the strengths and weak points of one of its most widely used concepts. By studying intersectionality closely, it becomes clear that its inclusiveness, its understanding of identity as multi-faceted, and its awareness of intermeshing systems of oppression are effective tools to describe and challenge social inequality. Just like black feminism, intersectionality works in favor of African American women and attempts to portray their lived experience as diversely as possible. Even though the concept has been criticized for its use of categories, epistemological and ontological problems, and its vagueness, criticism should be regarded as a possibility to improve and to reflect upon existing methodologies, structures, and theories. Being aware of its limitations and scope, intersectionality can be applied to the experience of an individual, to social structures, and even to cultural products, such as books or movies, in order to generate results that contest Western philosophy, dominant ideology, and patriarchal structures. The following chapter will provide background information about jazz music and its political, social, and cultural implications. It will exemplify what it means to be a jazz musician and is therefore helpful for a reading of the primary sources.

24 3. Contextualizing Jazz Music The roots and origins of jazz can be found in the experiences, stories, and histories of African American people. To say that jazz music equals black music; however, is to disregard the ethnic and cultural diversity which the genre accumulated over time and to give in to romanticized and superficial stereotypes. This is not to diminish the outstanding musical achievements of African American musicians or to deny the roots of the genre. Fumi Okiji's “Storytelling in Jazz Work as Retrospective Collaboration” explores the intergenerational aspects of the music and presents an alternative approach to analyze jazz. According to the author, the focus of research shifted from the jazz soloist to an examination of the whole band which highlights the importance of “dialogue and conversation” (Okiji 71). Concerning this matter, Okiji mentions Paul Berliner's Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation as a groundbreaking publication: The study has been foremost in attempts to redress the focus away from the individual solos and “great man of jazz” narratives, toward what is undeniably a more faithful portrayal of the music as the creative play of a group of musicians. [...]. It shows an appreciation of the negotiations between the individual and his musical community as pertinent to a more comprehensive understanding of jazz. (75)

By turning away from the soloist, scholars are able to contest long-established Eurocentric thoughts of analysis and engage in approaches that acknowledge the significance of communities (see Okiji 74). Thus, the making of jazz music represents a cultural practice which incorporates the voice of the individual as well as the voices of the community. In this context, storytelling means that a musician is able to express him- or herself through a unique style and sound while responding simultaneously to other musicians and the tradition of jazz (see Okiji 73). When the author states that “to play jazz is to re-tell the story of the jazz tradition but to do so in one's own voice,” his argument resembles Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of dialogism and heteroglossia, which emphasizes the dialogical interrelations of past, present, and future (Okiji 73). Because of its roots, the genre can be considered “a site of socio-political significance for many of its practitioners and audience-contributors” as well as “a sedimented socio-history of African America” (Okiji 79). Thinking about jazz history, Okiji suspects that the impact of the older generation on young musicians has led to “a certain degree of dialecticism” (83). This means that songs, or by way of comparison stories, are constantly retold, reshaped, and performed while maintaining their core elements. Regarding this matter, Okiji explains that “the lineage of versions resembles the notion of tradition we

25 are most familiar with – a chronology that links the earliest renditions to more recent ones, often emphasizing development and areas of consistency” (83). From this point of view, the musical piece or the story are never fully completed or realized since they represent only a fraction of the overall narrative. With his article, Fumi Okiji helps to contextualize jazz music and approaches the genre from a fresh angle. For him, the central elements of jazz are intergenerational dialog and collaborative creation of music. By acknowledging the importance of community and networking, Okiji presents an approach that runs counter to European methods of analysis promoting an examination that appears to be more consistent with African American experience and culture. In relation to the primary sources, Okiji's arguments can be useful in an examination of the biographical subject since he advises scholars to consider the creative individual as well as the community and its history. In “Sound of the Break: Jazz and the Failures of Emancipation,” Bridget R. Cooks and Graham Eng-Wilmot focus on the era of the civil rights movement and exemplify how jazz music was used as a means of political protest. To prove their point, the authors discuss musical pieces by Max Roach, John Coltrane, Nina Simone, and Duke Ellington (see Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 316). For the sake of this thesis, I will study the examples of John Coltrane and Nina Simone since I consider both artists to be of relevance for the following chapters of analysis. Cooks and Eng-Wilmot regard John Coltrane's song “Alabama” as a direct response to the killing of four young girls by the Ku Klux Klan (328). To display their sorrow, their condolences, and their willingness to protest, John Coltrane and his quartet incorporate “an unexpected full stop” in their song (Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 328). The authors explain that “[t]he unannounced shift [...] is significant in that it offers a musical lens into the divergent dynamics of the civil rights movement. In this original recording, the break divides two tones, two styles, two rhythms that transmit the sorrowful lows and celebratory highs of Black progress in Alabama” (328). As a musician, Coltrane plays with the expectations of his listeners who expect a steady beat and get taken by surprise when the tune momentarily stops. Through the element of the break, the quartet is able to display their form of resistance and to comment on the racial injustice present in the United States in a musical way. With regards to the song, Cooks and Eng-Wilmot observe that “[i]n their inconsistent disruption of musical momentum, the quartet's performances attest to the continued failure of Black freedom”

26 (330). The quote reflects two facts. First, that political and social tensions have an undeniable impact on the music; and second, that musicians like Coltrane and his quartet are capable of voicing their criticism and commentary through a breaking-down of conventional structures. The song “Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone proves to be another instance of musical protest. The song was written in 1963, recorded a year later, and addresses the injustice and violence of “American racial politics” (Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 330). Studying “Mississippi Goddam,” the authors assert that “the break results from the tension between the happy rhythmic presentation and the lyrical rage that made the song, and Simone extraordinary” (Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 330). By contrasting the political outrage of the lyrics with a cheerful beat, Nina Simone manages to convey both, intense indignation and a celebration of civil rights efforts (see Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 331, 334). Cooks and Eng- Wilmot note that “[t]hrough 'Mississippi Goddam' Simone testifies to the corrupt double standard of democracy for Black and White citizens” (334). As a musician, performer, and icon of the civil rights movement, Nina Simone stands out because of her ability to merge political messages with elements of jazz and pop music. Using this unconventional and unique approach, she creates her own style of civil rights songs and does not shy away from a direct confrontation with the audience (see Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 335). Even though their approaches may vary, African American musicians like Coltrane and Simone communicate a collective willingness to resist racial injustice and exemplify how the concept of the break can be used for political protest. As shown in the previous examples, the idea of musical resistance is individualized and different from artist to artist. For Coltrane, opposition can be achieved through a break-down of musical structures and a return to them. By implementing a stop in the middle of the song, he creates a moment of confusion and contemplation which mirrors the shock felt after the “bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham” (Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 328). For Simone, creating protest means to build a tension between the musical elements of a song and its lyrics. In doing so, she mediates a duality which consists of an optimism regarding the civil rights movement as well as a disapproval of racist American politics (see Cooks and Eng-Wilmot 334-335).

27 4. What Happened, Miss Simone? With his biography What Happened, Miss Simone?, Alan Light tries to capture the life of African American singer and musical icon Nina Simone. As the author mentions in the acknowledgments, the igniting spark for his work was Liz Garbus's documentary which shares the same title as the biography and was released before the publication of the book (see Light 297). Furthermore, Light gives thanks to Liz Garbus and her documentary team since they provided him with research material, namely with “news interviews, as well as an extensive trove of archival material, including Nina Simone's diaries and letters and the transcripts from her various attempts at a memoir” (297). This means that the film-makers as well as Alan Light shared identical material to narrate a story about Nina Simone. Regarding this, Light comments: “The raw files were so powerful and so thorough that it only made me respect the editing and crafting that Liz did even more, and left me with the responsibility of trying to fill in the story and connect the dots beyond what could be done in a 102-minute film” (297). In this instance, the biographer makes clear that he understands his work as an extension of the movie; one which provides more space for a detailed discussion of research material and contextual information. Given the fact that the film was released in 2015 and the biography was first published in 2016, it can be assumed that deadlines and commercial interests of the publisher were influential factors in the publication of the book (IMDb). Looking at the introduction of What Happened, Miss Simone?, the assumption seems to be confirmed because language use and word choice clearly aim at promoting the book. In this part of the biography, Light portrays Nina Simone as a historical figure who was convinced of the civil rights movement and of her music (see 2-3). The author highlights Simone's struggles, her disillusionment, and her frustration with the political situation in the United States of America (see 4-5). Concerning her life, the biographer writes: “Most of this troubled existence, of course, had to do with her specific circumstances: being a piano prodigy, who grew up in the rural and segregated South, with complicated relationships to her family, her music, and her sexuality” (Light 5). He continues saying that “[h]er letters and diaries reveal a woman who feared her own husband, questioned her sexual preference, battled depression” (Light 5). The selected text passages display that Light juxtaposes Nina Simone's musical and political achievements with her private problems and conflicts, which creates a sense of tension. This writing strategy of contrasting positive and negative aspects of the musician's life is notable in the introduction

28 and presumably used to make the biography attractive in terms of selling prospects. The statement of Alan Light regarding Simone's letters and diaries is an interpretation and might give reason to disagree. Instead of seeing Simone at conflict with her sexuality, it would also be possible to read and interpret her behavior as encouraging for people to make their own sexual experiences – even if this means to do something outside of heteronormativity. With regard to music, Light states that “[h]er piano playing, the blazing focus of her early life, was accomplished and sophisticated well beyond that of her peers. And her delivery, on her best days, was unparalleled in its intensity and force” (7). For the biographer, it is clear that Simone possessed a unique and distinct style that separates her from other musicians of the time. Referring to the political messages of Simone's music, Light produces a dialog between himself as a narrator, shaping the frame of the conversation, and Nina Simone's voice, seemingly responding through an excerpt of an interview. The author of What Happened, Miss Simone? writes: Simone herself would not allow her work to be reduced simply to a product of anger, a push-button reaction to white racism that could be dismissed without an acknowledgment of the music's layers. “I sing from intelligence,” she said. “I sing from letting them know that I know who they are, and what they have done to my people around the world. That's not anger – anger has its place and fire moves things. But I sing from intelligence.” (Light 7)

The citation above reflects three points. First, Alan Light determines the conversational frame as well as the topic; second, the biographer creates a kind of dialog by incorporating statements by Simone; and third, telling from the quote, Simone appeared to be a woman who knew how to speak her mind. Regarding linguistic choices, the biographer describes his biographical subject as short-tempered, eccentric, and “sensitive,” when compared to other artists (Light 8). Thus, it can be said that Light's introductory picture of Nina Simone comprises her roles as talented virtuoso, political activist, eccentric performer, and woman of many struggles. Through the use of name-dropping, Light attempts to create what Smith and Watson describe as an implicit claim for authority (see Smith and Watson 27). To be more precise, Light uses the names of celebrities such as “Alicia Keys”, “Whitney Houston”, or “Barack Obama”, in order to prove the relevance and significance of his topic and biographical subject (10-11).

29 Looking at rhetorical questions posed in the introduction, the presence of the author's voice becomes apparent. A case in point are the following questions: “Why was there such a sudden burst of attention for an artist who had been dead for a dozen years? How had public consciousness remained so high for someone who had only grazed the pop charts a few times and who had no songs that had penetrated mass nostalgia sufficiently to stay in circulation on oldies radio?” (Light 13). This list of questions demonstrates that the author is present in the text, addresses his readership directly, and appears to be critical of his material. By incorporating questions, Alan Light animates an imaginative dialog between him and the reader. Before moving on to other parts of the biography, it should be pointed out that the author refers to Nina Simone's autobiography in the introduction (see Light 14). Concerning this matter, Light writes: “In one interview – for one of the numerous false starts at a memoir, which eventually resulted in 1991's often fascinating, wildly inaccurate, maddeningly uneven I Put a Spell on You – she was asked whether she could find God in her own music” (14). Rhetorically, this quote is extremely interesting because Light discredits Nina Simone's autobiography as “inaccurate” and “uneven” (14). In doing so, he implies that Simone was unable to tell her own story and that her way of storytelling was flawed. To elevate himself over his biographical subject, the writer misuses his position and claims authority over the narration of Nina Simone's experience and life. Even though her autobiography might be unreliable in terms of narration and a challenging read, it does not justify a denial of her life narrative. I Put a Spell on You should rather be seen as a personal interpretation of memory, a reflection of Simone's persona, and her tendency to non-conformity. Referring back to black feminism and the concept of epistemology, Nina Simone's autobiography represents an alternative source of knowledge that does not seem to work in established structures of knowledge production (see Collins 269). Given the history of oppression in the United States, it is questionable and problematic that African American women are not granted the freedom to express themselves freely without being discredited, silenced, or denied agency over their own lives and stories. Despite my criticism, it must be pointed out that the remaining chapters of What Happened, Miss Simone? differ from the introduction of the book. An explanation for this discrepancy might be the intention to maximize interest in the reader by writing the introductory part in a manner that is thrilling and attention-grabbing.

30 Throughout his publication, Light presents the biographical subject from different perspectives which highlights the many personas and roles Nina Simone occupied. It is striking that Light utilizes the voices of Simone's social environment, including friends and family members, in order to enhance his characterization of the musician. In chapter four, by way of example, the author employs the voice of Al Schackman, Nina Simone's guitarist and lifetime friend. Through the words of Schackman, the author produces an external description of Simone: “'Suddenly, the jazz aficionados discovered her, and she really became the darling of the upper crust of music. People were awestruck by her ability, and also by her presence and her formality. You just didn't get close to Nina. She was extremely cautious and protective of her space'” (Light 57). In this instance, Light provides the context and Schackman the words to describe Nina Simone which creates an effect that leads the reader to believe that she or he can get to know the biographical subject personally. Another example of an external description is a statement by Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm X's daughter, who said that “[t]here are people who see injustice and it becomes a part of them, and they can't run from it, and I think that Nina Simone was one of those people” (Light 100). Ilyasah Shabazz continued her thought: “[Nina Simone] didn't know about racism per se, she wasn't so conscious of injustice. And once she became completely aware of it, she couldn't turn around and continue to play classical music, she had to write about the things she was feeling. I think that sometimes these things become so overwhelming, they challenge the core of who you are” (Light 100). Through the selected quotes by Schackman and Shabazz, it becomes apparent that the author foregrounds Simone's abilities as a performer and musician as well as her role as a political activist. While most of the present voices in the biography are positive about Nina Simone, Light also gives room for voices that are critical of the artist and present her in a different light. One critical voice is Andrew Stroud, Simone's abusive and violent ex-husband (see 74- 77). During her relationship, he was working as her manager and opposed to her political activism since he feared a negative impact on her career (see Light 131). Concerning this, Alan Light writes that “Stroud, already wary of Nina's distraction from her career goals, claimed that her sense of activism could be irrational, even destructive. He said that she would talk about poisoning the local reservoir or grabbing one of his guns and shooting people” (131). This juxtaposition of negative and positive accounts generates a tension which

31 indicates that Simone's personality was multi-layered and consisted of conflicting and competing roles. In addition to these accounts, Alan Light incorporates autobiographical information, namely letters, diary entries, and lyrics of Simone's songs. This shows that contemporary writing works with an assemblage of materials as well as with a blend of biographical and autobiographical elements (see Smith and Watson 6-7). In selecting an adequate quote, the author creates the illusion that the biographical subject speaks for herself. This act can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, this could mean that the biographer shares his position as a narrating authority with the subject and grants him or her more agency. On the other hand, the act of selecting a quote represents an interpretative choice which reveals what the author considers important or less relevant. Therefore, the biographer's perspective has a significant impact on the representation of the subject and influences the perception of the reader. In chapter seven of the book, Light refers to a diary entry by Nina Simone in which she seems to be self-reflective and self-critical at the same time. The author quotes from Simone's diary: […] I don't like being around Andrew all the time – I've never liked that – some of my faults are: 1. I [slam?] and [shout?] all the time 2. I fuck when I don't feel it 3. Fight and argue 4. I blame him for my not having friends but I'm afraid to make new friends – afraid that he'll take them apart. Now that I'm famous I distrust everyone much more than I need to – I wonder how badly my father and mother's failure at marriage has affected me? […] I need people to like me in order to like myself – I can't seem to do alone – my ego and self confidence was shattered somewhere. (Light 112)3

This citation pictures the artist as a fragile person and in clear contrast to her self-assured on- stage persona. It reflects Simone as a musician who struggled with her fame, her relationships, and herself. While the use of autobiographical elements makes the reader aware of the constructiveness of the text, it also foregrounds the voice of the biographical subject. Even though Simone appeared to be in a weak state, the quote above demonstrates that she was capable of assessing her own experiences. Despite self-pity, Simone clearly addressed what bothered her, criticized Andrew Stroud, and put her parents' marriage into question. Through the selected quote, Light illustrates Simone neither as superior nor inferior to her surroundings but rather as observing and contemplating. In that sense, autobiographical text passages in What Happened, Miss Simone? constitute a space in which the author attempts to isolate the voice of his biographical subject from exterior influences.

3 All autobiographical elements in What Happened, Miss Simone? are written in italics.

32 To achieve an in-depth analysis of the biography, it is crucial to think about concepts of memory, experience, embodiment, identity, and agency (see Smith and Watson 15-16). An instance that links to memory and embodiment can be found in chapter nine. Alan Light refers to Angela Davis who commented on Simone's appearance at an event “held for Huey P. Newton, the imprisoned cofounder of the Black Panther Party” (151). Remembering the artist, Davis said: “It was Nina Simone's voice that bestowed on that gathering an aura of historical transcendence” (Light 152). She continued explaining that “[i]n representing all of the women who had been silenced, in sharing her incomparable artistic genius, she was the embodiment of the revolutionary democracy we had not yet learned how to imagine. At that moment we were no longer powerless individuals but rather a formidable collective force that was moving irreversibly in the direction of radical change” (Light 152). This quote demonstrates that Angela Davis remembered Nina Simone as political activist and feminist icon. As discussed in the theory part, personal memory is subjective, fragmented, and reflects public and private acts of remembering (see Smith and Watson 16). The given example is a mixture of both. It reveals how Davis personally remembered Simone as well as how the public might think back to her appearance at the event. The fact that Light incorporates Davis's statement shows that he acknowledges the importance of Simone's performance. Since the act of remembering is a sociocultural process, it can display an affirmation or a resistance against dominant ideology (see Smith and Watson 18). In the case above, the statement of Angela Davis indicates a 1960s feminist opposition against patriarchal power structures in the United States (see Light 151-152). For her, Nina Simone was a leader, the voice that spoke for all the women who had been denied representation and agency. Regarding this, it should be pointed out that memory is also affected by discourses. This explains why it is possible to encounter manifold and differing memories of the same person depending on the context of remembering. From a feminist perspective, for example, Nina Simone might be remembered through different historical events than through a perspective exclusively related to musical studies. The song “Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone proves to be a prime example of fusing memory and experience together (see Light 97-101). Referring to the racist terrorism of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, Light quotes the musician: “When they killed those children is when I said, 'I have to start using my talent to help black people'”(97). Further, Simone admitted: “ When they killed the little girls in Alabama, that's when I changed” (Light 97). Recalling Reading Autobiography, experience is subjective and gets communicated

33 through “memory and language” (Smith and Watson 24). Consequently, “Mississippi Goddam” can be regarded as a song in which Nina Simone processed the memory of the tragedy in a musical and lyrical manner. Her personal engagement with the attacks is reflected in the lyrics and marked a turning point in her life. Light comments that “[w]hen she premiered the song at Carnegie Hall in March 1964, she introduced a level of outrage and immediacy unlike anything else in the protest movement” (99). Thus, the author conveys the impression that the African American singer had authority over the experience present in the song which made her outcry more serious and comprehensible. In “Mississippi Goddam,” Nina Simone sings out loud: You don't have to live next to me Just give me my equality Alabama's gotten me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam! (Light 99)

Through her song and her performance of it, Simone gave voice to the voiceless and made the African American experience of suffering and protest visible as well as audible. What stands out here is her use of personal pronouns, such as “me”, “my”, and “you”, which mirrors Simone's willingness for confrontation. She was ready to voice her protest and claims for equality; however, she did not speak exclusively for herself but for all marginalized and oppressed African Americans. Clearly, the first line of the song was addressed at white citizens who had racist attitudes and were in favor of segregation. In his biography, Alan Light talks about Nina Simone and the different episodes of her life. Nevertheless, her political activism, the ability to speak her mind, as well as her will to protest seem to be present throughout the book and therefore constitute key aspects of her persona. As explained in the theoretical part, identities are intersectional, diverse, and unstable (see Smith and Watson 33). Further, overlapping identity categories can indicate tensions and conflicts of the individual with its social environment. These become apparent when individuals create identities through actions within the discursive framework of language (see Bakhtin qtd. in Smith and Watson 34). Concerning this matter, What Happened, Miss Simone? provides text passages which depict the biographical subject and her struggle to conform to identity categories. In the sixth chapter, for example, Alan Light incorporates a letter from Nina Simone addressed to her husband in which she complained about pressure

34 and stress (see 107-108). In this instance, it becomes evident that the artist had to cope with multiple identities and role expectations. In her letter, she wrote: “[…] Work most of the time is like a deadly poison seeping into my brain, undoing all the progress I've made, causing me not to see the sun in the daytime, […], not to care about anything except death – and death to my childish mind is simply escaping into the unconscious” (Light 107). In addition to the pressure of her musical career, Simone had to cope with her roles as political activist, mother, and wife. Referring to her daughter, she wrote: “Lisa is okay as long as she doesn't want too much from me and is just content with my presence and letting me watch her at play” (Light 107). The autobiographical letter reveals how intense Nina Simone experienced the conflict between role expectations and her person. Furthermore, it shows that the attempt to fulfill all expectations led her into depressive thoughts and harmed her psyche. Another example that reflects the complexity of Simone's persona can be found in chapter four and links to sexual preference. With regard to her popularity among lesbians and gays, Light states: “With her unconventional, stylized sound and image, Nina's appeal to those marginalized by society – and, in turn, her own interest in such people – was solidifying” (66). The biographer also notes that “[p]eople close to Simone claimed that in the early days in New York Simone had several physical relationships with women. Schackman and others said that her close friendship with the prostitute Kevin Mathias had developed a sexual component” (Light 67). Regarding this, Light admits that rumors and claims are no reliable source of information; however, a certain interest of the gay community in Simone and vice versa seemed to exist (see 66-68). In this context, the biographical subject is depicted as potentially deviant and transgressive which strengthens the impression that Nina Simone opposed heteronormativity. Regardless of factual truth, the author manages to create a persona of Nina Simone which seeks to resist the dominant ideology of the time. As pointed out in chapter twelve, Simone and her daughter were invited to Monrovia, Liberia, to attend festivities celebrating the new government (see Light 199). The singer talked about her host and reported: “[Makeba] knew about my homeland, where my ancestors came from. We shared the same goals. We had the same color We had the same hair. We shared the same interest in men. She loved to dance and drink champagne, and make love, and so did I” (Light 199). In this section of the biography, Nina Simone expressed that she wished for a stable identity and searched for commonalities between her and the host. This search for cultural belonging, ancestry, and blackness can be interpreted as a phenomenon which is not

35 unique to Nina Simone. As remarked earlier in the chapter about black feminism, it derives from the resistance against oppressive forces of patriarchal and colonialist structures which were used during times of slavery to uproot and manipulate the enslaved (see Carter 15, 17, 21). Furthermore, the selected quote indicates that Simone favored promiscuity and wanted to live out her sexual feelings. Given the historical context of the 1970s, Simone's account reflects a liberal and progressive idea of sexuality which stands in contrast to traditional gender roles. Studying What Happened, Miss Simone?, I consider it worth investigating how much agency the biographical subject possesses and how this relates to choices made by the author. Like mentioned before, the concept of agency describes the degree to which an individual can make free choices and exercise power over his or her own life (see Smith and Watson 42). Again, it should be remarked that the biographical subject and her degree of agency do not necessarily relate to the historical person of Nina Simone. After all, the biography is a subjective, interpretive, and constructed text. In chapter nine, the author provides an example for agency. Referring to a moment in which Nina Simone seemed to be highly self- determined, the biographer writes: In August of 1969, she decided that she needed a break – from her husband and from her work – more significant than just a retreat to her treehouse or a temporary disappearance in her car, and she impulsively booked a trip by herself to Barbados. She left her wedding ring on her bedroom nightstand and took off without telling Stroud that she was leaving or where she was going. (Light 158)

This citation pictures the musician as willing to change the circumstances which caused her stress and pain. By traveling to Barbados, Simone escaped the pressure she had to face in the United States. Leaving husband, child, and her musical career behind, she decided that she needed a break for herself and thus conveyed a strong sense of agency. Chapter fifteen gives attention to Nina Simone's move to France as well as to the late days of her career. As the reader discovers in the previous chapter, Simone battled mental health issues and therefore had to take medication in order to cope with