Tracing an Intellectual, Political, and Literary Genealogy from Women of Color Feminist Anthologies to Women of Color Feminist Tumblr
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Conversations Across Generations: Tracing an Intellectual, Political, and Literary Genealogy from Women of Color Feminist Anthologies to Women of Color Feminist Tumblr by Jennifer Alzate González A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language and Literature) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Ruby Tapia, Chair Associate Professor Maria Cotera Associate Professor Victor Mendoza Professor Lisa Nakamura Jennifer Alzate González [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0242-4563 © Jennifer Alzate González 2020 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to those of us who don’t come from radical, progressive, or feminist families. Who are forced to find their own way to voice the silent yearning, and to express the killing rage. Who eventually found it through books, poetry, high school and college classes; through Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress, Instagram, and Tumblr; through TV shows, late- night conversations, and whatever we could get our hands on. May we recognize the inner strength we’ve gained from forging our own path. And may we blaze a new trail for all our loved ones to come. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Given the inner hellscape that threatened to consume me throughout much of this journey, I couldn’t have made it out to the other side without so much support from so many people. Thank you to Ruby Tapia, for always seeing and supporting my vision. And for granting me space and time when I needed it. To María Cotera, for all the pláticas and intergenerational locuras we got up to in San Francisco and for all the joy that working for CPMR gave me. To Victor Mendoza, whose consistent and early faith in me buoyed up my then-fragile sense of self. To Lisa Nakamura, whose feedback pushed my thinking. To Barbara Ransby and Roderick Ferguson, radical thinkers who I deeply admire and who, miraculously, saw something in me too. To the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program at Columbia University, especially Dean Hazel May, Jarvis McInnis, Monica Huerta, Don Ramon, and every single student who walked through that program with me. It was a truly unforgettable academic boot camp whose preparation reverberated throughout my entire time in the PhD. And a special shout out to the MMUF Chicago program, which ignited my passion and started friendships that have supported iii me through this whole journey. As well as early mentors like Josh Miller, Meg Sweeney, Matthew Countryman, and, especially, Joey Slaughter. I also have many, many dear friends who have held me throughout this process. Weihui Lu, THANK YOU for not giving up on me. I’m blessed to be your friend. Shannon Walton, my soul sister! You know just what you mean to me. Dawn Kaczmar, I am blessed to have reconnected with you & all that you are. Maryam Aziz, for your constant cheerleading and for showing up to all my things, even when I didn’t ask you to. To my cohortmates, especially Laura Strout, Mika Kennedy, Annie Bolotin, Sheila Coursey, Anne Charlotte Mecklenburg, Crystal Yin Lie, Amanda Greene — we’re doing it! To Arya Tewatia, Lauren Eriks Cline, Austin McCoy, Robin Zheng, Jim McAsey, Diana Carolina, Valentina Montero, Kyle Grady, Kyera Singleton. To college friends who held me tight during the grad school application process, especially Vangie Shue, Isabel Stillman, Julia Oktawiec, and Vivian Lehecka-Coyne. To Quinn Phillips, a recent but cherished addition to my life. And to friends and lovers whose paths diverged from mine. Thank you to all those who have held me close over the years. Thank you to my kind, radical, phenomenal cohorts of students in English 125, The American Novel, and Foundations of Intergroup Relations — you rock. To all the adorable dogs I’ve taken care of. To Buddhist authors like Pema Chödrön, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Tara Brach who have gotten me through hard times. To YouTube yoga teachers. To all the baristas at Blue Owl Coffee in Reo Town, Lansing. To all my therapists, and especially Connie. To the lakes and forests I’ve walked through trying to find myself. And thank you to myself, for showing up through everything and for committing to love and awakeness for the long-haul. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS v LIST OF FIGURES vii ABSTRACT viii INTRODUCTION 1 Women of color feminism 3 Feminism, the internet, and the digital humanities 7 Chapter outlines and stakes 13 CHAPTER I 21 “Every generation rewrites [them]”: Tracing a Genealogy Between Women of Color Feminist Anthologies and Women of Color Feminist Spaces Online 21 Anthologizing, then digitizing, women of color feminism 23 Decentering famous authors, decentralizing movements 33 Articulations of subjectivity 40 Publics and counterpublics 45 Conclusion and significance 50 WORKS CITED 52 CHAPTER II: Reinscribing a Women of Color Feminist Ethos Online: The Circulation of Women of Color Feminist Texts on Tumblr 58 Contemporary historical context: #BlackLivesMatter 60 Modes of circulation and network maps 62 Self-reflection and Tumblr feels 75 WORKS CITED 83 CHAPTER III 89 A context of invisibility 92 Citing feminist of color coalition theories 95 Translating coalition theories into Tumblr speak and theoretical praxis 100 Reconceptualizing contemporary current events 105 v WORKS CITED 115 CHAPTER IV 121 The ephemerality of websites and data 125 The precarity of women of color online 129 Redefining the digital humanities through radical women of color digital projects and labor 136 Visionary steps and longevity in the face of impermanence 145 WORKS CITED 157 CONCLUSION 164 WORKS CITED 173 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure i: Reblog graph of the first 200 reblogs of the most popular #TBCMB Tumblr post. 65 Figure ii: Reblog graph of the first 527 influential reblogs of the most popular #TBCMB Tumblr post. 65 Figure iii: Screenshot of Buzzfeed Books post, “Here’s What to Read If You Want to Learn More About Intersectional Feminism” 70 Figure iv: Reblog graph of Figure iii, the most highly shared book list featuring This Bridge Called My Back as one of its entries 70 Figure v: Selfie of Janet Mock and bell hooks. (Wocinsolidarity, h) 96 Figure vi: An image of Dolores Huerta protesting; a protest screenprint that reads “Viva la Huelga!”; and biogrpahical information on Dolores Huerta. (Wocinsolidarity, f) 96 Figure vii: A scrolling list of “sister” Tumblrs on the Tumblr page Angry Women of Color United. 121 Figure viii: Tumblr’s 404 error message. White text reads: “There’s nothing here. Whatever you were looking for doesn’t currently exist at this address. Unless you were looking for this error page, in which case: Congrats! You totally found it.” 121 vii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the digital pedagogy and political genealogy of women of color feminist Tumblr, a networked community of antiracist users on the social media platform Tumblr. I show how these users’ free collection and distribution of social justice educational materials online constitutes a digital feminist of color pedagogy, one which challenges entrenched hierarchies of knowledge-production and circulation. Using textual and discursive analysis as well as social media-specific qualitative methods, I argue that women of color feminist Tumblr harnesses social media as an alternative feminist classroom space—one which challenges the presumed location of feminist and ethnic studies as they have come to be incorporated into the neoliberal multicultural university (Ferguson) and which reimagines their “theoretical subject” (Alarcón) as online users who lack institutional access to these fields’ emancipatory knowledge. Further, I show how the very ethics of this online feminist classroom space are derived from the longer history of women of color feminist praxis and the theorization of “women of color” as a cross-racial, coalitional feminist identity. Building upon the work of Norma Alarcón, Chela Sandoval, and Analouise Keating, who argue that Third World feminism’s “most potentially transformational theories” were largely “bypassed and ignored” (Keating) by mainstream feminist scholarship, my dissertation intervenes by analyzing Third World feminism’s “digital afterlife” (Adair and Nakamura) on social media. By centering viii questions of race, class, gender, and sexuality within the digital humanities, I join emergent critiques of the digital humanities (Bailey, Cong-Huyen, Lothian, and Phillips 2016) and show how ordinary users transform social media platforms into powerful tools of feminist (re)education. ix INTRODUCTION In 2007, my proto-inner-angry-feminist was desperate for validation. As early as middle and high school, I had reached my tipping point over the subtle hypocrisy of “girls don’t behave that way” and other microaggressions. After repeated exposures to the historical women’s movement in history class, I eventually googled it and ran head-first into the feminist blogosphere. As if unlocking the feminist heavens, I hungrily consumed answers and pursued hyperlink trails — and within the year, I was a brand new, 16-year old feminist. My second epiphany came at the beginning of graduate school, when I found the feminist of color Tumblr- sphere, which gave me words, images, and histories that I had never known before. The transformative effect of these digital feminist spaces on my life got me interested in the effect they were having on the larger online culture. If the blogosphere had primarily consisted of older, more seasoned feminists, Tumblr seemed to be run largely by people my age. How were we all finding this feminist information and content? What was moving us to share it? And what special magic did this practice of reblogging and resharing — like passing around zines between girlfriends — conjure that was unique to Tumblr? Why were people like Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde, and books like This Bridge Called My Back, so popular online? And what did this all have to do with women of color feminism? 1 This dissertation analyzes women of color feminist Tumblr as a networked learning community.