Faculty of Arts and Philosophy 2006-2007 WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE BIRD AND THE FISH FALL IN LOVE? A thematic exploration of identity and racial issues in Richard Powers’ The Time of Our Singing Supervisor: Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the Prof. Dr. Kristiaan Versluys requirements for the degree of ‘Licentiaat in de Taal - en Letterkunde: Germaanse Talen’ by Tessa De Smet ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been written without the help and support of a few people. I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Professor Dr. Kristiaan Versluys, for his encouraging words, helpful comments and constructive feedback. Thanks also go to Romanie for introducing me to the work of Richard Powers, to Froya, Jordi and my parents for their support and unconditional trust (thanks Dad for proofreading!) and to all my friends in Bruges, Ghent and elsewhere for making spare time as carefree and enjoyable as possible! Thank you all! Tessa Ghent, May 2007 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 PART 1 : Theoretical Framework 4 CHAPTER 1: Race 5 What’s in a Name: The Many Meanings of Race 5 A Historical Framework: Past and Present Race Theories 8 A Future Beyond Race? America’s Hopeful Dream 12 CHAPTER 2: Identity (& Race) 16 2.1 Who is it that can tell me who I am? Identity m/Matters 16 2.2 The Persistent Effects of Colour Labelling: Racial Identity 22 2.3 Neither Black nor White yet Both: Crossing Racial Boundaries 28 PART 2 : Literary Analysis 35 CHAPTER 3: Characterisation: A Composition in Black & White 36 3.1 Interracial Literature: A Literary Tradition 37 3.2 The Portrait of a Family: Fish or Bird? 41 3.3 Racial Identity: The Theoretical Models applied 49 CHAPTER 4: Grand Novels have Grand Ideas: Race, Culture & History 55 4.1 Culture: Who Gets to Sing What? 55 4.2 History: Uncanting the can’t 60 4.3 Race: Older Than History and Build to Outlast It 67 CONCLUSION 74 REFRENCES 76 INTRODUCTION Richard Powers, sometimes characterised as ‘the greatest author you’ve never heard of’ (in Flanders §1), was born in Illinois, in June 1957. After reading physics, rhetoric and literature at the University of Illinois, Powers worked for a while as a computer programmer and a freelance data processor before he quite abruptly quitted his job to devote his time to writing. His first novel, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, was published in 1985. Since this highly praised debut, Powers has written eight more novels. Slowly but surely, he has gained a devoted flock of admirers, especially in scholarly circles. He is regularly compared to illustrious writers such as Thomas Pynchon, Jonathan Franzen and Don De Lillo and over the years he has been granted various prestigious awards (the MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Award, among others). The Time of Our Singing, published in 2003, is Powers’ eighth novel and is claimed by critics to be one of his most accessible ones so far. Powers’ novels show certain recurrent patterns and concerns. They are generally described as intellectual and highbrow, as he foregrounds complex and ambitious themes such as molecular genetics (The Gold Bug Variations), artificial intelligence (Galatea 2.2), the manufacture of soap (Gain) and virtual reality (Plowing the Dark), which he furthermore presents in dazzling and architectural plot structures. A noteworthy and typical feature of his work is the fusion of art and science, two notions Powers is particularly interested in. From a very early age, the author has been pulled between literature and music, on the one hand, and science and technology, on the other. He was a talented student of vocal music, he played the cello, guitar, clarinet and saxophone, he read the Iliad and the Odyssey and was attracted to the first-generation European modernists. At the same time, he was fascinated by Darwinian concepts, palaeontology, oceanography, archaeology and physics (Dodd §2). In his novels, he draws heavily on these personal fields of interest. The relationship between art and science is a central feature of his work. In this thesis, we will focus on Powers’ eighth novel, The Time of Our Singing. It is a family saga written in the tradition of the Great American Novel. As in his 1 previous novels, art and science are contrasted. The story cleverly incorporates theoretical physics (Einstein’s relativity theory and notions on time) as well as musical technique and history (the repertoire discussed in the novel includes besides mediaeval a cappella songs also twentieth-century gangsta rap). Apart from music and time, there is one other crucial theme in the novel: race. The Time of Our Singing tells the story of a biracial family struggling to find its place in twentieth-century America. It reveals the deep roots of racism in American life while dealing with issues of cultural ownership, identity and racial prejudice and discrimination. Powers is one of many writers who have tackled the subject of race and described the dehumanising horrors of racism and racial violence. The aim of this dissertation is to specifically examine the way in which Powers deals with the concepts of race and identity, how he uses common ideas, dominant paradigms and conventional representations to create his fictional characters and story. The study is divided into two larger parts. The first part provides a theoretical framework that will be used as an analytic tool and will be applied to The Time of Our Singing in a more text-oriented, second part. The first, introductory, chapter will serve as a useful starting point for our discussion. Broadly explaining the notion of race, it examines the various meanings of the concept, while contrasting past and current race theories. The disparity between the essentialist, biological approach on race and the social constructionist perspective will be investigated and the possibility of a future beyond race will be evaluated. The second chapter focuses on identity issues. After a general and more abstract section, the specific relationship between race and identity will be looked at. We will first examine the procedure of identity formation and the differences between achieved and ascribed identities, self - and external identification and individual and group identities. Then, the process of racial identification will be analysed and different theories of racial identity development will be considered. A study of mixed-race identity and identification will conclude this first, theoretical part. The next two chapters are devoted to a detailed analysis of Powers’ The Time of Our Singing. In chapter three, Powers’ characterisation will be investigated. The purpose is to situate the novel within the tradition of interracial literature and to examine whether Powers’ portrayal of mixed-race people either confirms or refutes the 2 dominant representations and themes. The theoretical identity models introduced in part 1 will be applied to the fictional characters. Chapter four, finally, focuses on race and more specifically on its relationship with culture and history. Issues of cultural ownership and geneticism will be considered and Powers’ fictionalisation of historic events and characters will be investigated. Special attention is devoted to recurring motifs in the novel and Powers’ position in the race debate will be assessed. Does the novel confirm the social constructionist view or the essentialist approach and does it offer a final conclusion on racial matters? 3 PART 1 Theoretical Framework ﺹ In this first part, the abstractions race and identity will be introduced and explained by means of common scholarly conceptions, schemes and theories. Chapter 1 will focus on race matters, while chapter 2 describes identity questions. This theoretical overview will not attempt to be exhaustive. Since the amount of literature dealing with the concepts of race and identity is in itself enormous, it will only seek to offer some interesting insights and relevant models and tools for analysing, exploring and critically assessing the notion of (racial) identity in Richard Power’s novel The Time of Our Singing (cf. Part 2). 4 CHAPTER 1: RACE In 1903, the American sociologist and social reformer W.E.B. DuBois famously proclaimed that the twentieth century would be characterised by ‘the problem of the color line’ (13). It suffices to look at the former Apartheid Regime in South-Africa and the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 60s in the United States to understand how prophetic his statement was. Though specific situations may have changed and improved over time, race has stayed nonetheless a significant and constant theme throughout history. Its impact on social identities and the lives of individuals continues to be huge. People are still divided in various groups based on skin colour and other (physical) characteristics and incidents of racial segregation, prejudice, discrimination and injustice remain ubiquitous. As a concept, race is regarded as both controversial and problematic. Conflicting views and changing perspectives make it one of the most hotly debated topics in the domain of social sciences. This chapter carefully addresses the complexity of the notion. To avoid all misinterpretation and confusion, it looks at the etymology of the word, considering various suggested definitions. A concise historical overview examines past and current race theories and evaluates the possibility of a ‘future beyond race’. The focus throughout the chapter will be on black and white racial problems in the United States, since they are central to our research topic. 1.1 What’s in a Name: The Many Meanings of Race -- To call forth a concept, a word is needed. (Antoine Lavoisier, Elementary Treatise on Chemistry) A good starting point for a discussion about race would be a precise and unambiguous definition of the term. For use of language and choice of terminology will prove to be very important in the approach to racial issues and also, as K.