A TANGLE OF DOUBLE BINDS: POSTMODERN DISCOURSE ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN NOVEL By JOHN LOVELL GLENN A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2012 1 © 2012 John Lovell Glenn 2 To my loving wife, parents, and rather large family: May you all enjoy lives of learning, so that you are apt to teach one another. Thanks for teaching me to love, laugh, and live by the Holy Spirit! 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank God for his guiding grace. In addition, I thank my committee chair, Mark Reid. My readers Tace Hedrick, Faye Harrison, and Debra King were indispensable. I am grateful for the careful readings, criticisms, and encouraging smiles given me by wife Rachel Andre Glenn. Without her insight and wit, this project would have much less personality. Much thanks to my mentor/peer Zahir Small whose desire for knowledge enhanced my own. Likewise, Christina Glenn’s attentive ears and largess made me all the more confident. Lastly, thanks to my parents, and my brothers and sisters for their interest in my academic goals; nothing gets completed in isolation. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 9 What Will Postmodernism Do With History? ........................................................... 13 Autonomy and the Politics of the Double Bind ........................................................ 18 African American Postmodernism and Radical Democracy .................................... 22 Ontology and the Treatment of Difference in African American Fiction .................. 27 The Politics of Mid-twentieth Century Social Movements ....................................... 29 Conclusion: African American Literary Discourse ................................................... 32 2 REVISING CULTURAL CONCEPTIONS OF PROGRESS: AFROFURISM IN COLSON WHITEHEAD’S THE INTUITIONIST ...................................................... 36 Situating Colson Whitehead’s Representation ........................................................ 37 Afrofuturism’s Industrial Inroads ............................................................................. 39 Postmodernity and Identity Formation .................................................................... 45 Whitehead’s Integration Metropolis ......................................................................... 49 Tokenism and Negro Firsters .................................................................................. 58 Revising Cultural Conceptions of Progress ............................................................. 69 3 RESTLESS QUESTIONING: PSYCHOLOGICAL ANGST IN ALICE WALKER’S MERIDIAN .............................................................................................................. 79 Alice Walker’s Range and Representation .............................................................. 80 The Protocols of Psychological Angst ..................................................................... 82 Apathy and Postmodern Resistance ....................................................................... 87 Civil Rights and Meridian’s Awareness ................................................................... 91 Women and the Movement ..................................................................................... 95 The Man Question .................................................................................................. 98 Meridian’s Restless Questioning ........................................................................... 102 4 RESISTING CONSENSUS: CULTURE WORK IN JOHN OLIVER KILLENS’S THE COTILLION: OR, ONE GOOD BULL IS HALF THE HERD .......................... 114 Killens’s Polemical Influence ................................................................................. 115 A Work of Culture ................................................................................................. 117 Postmodernity and Class Difference ..................................................................... 122 Black Nationalist Culture and the “Real” Yoruba ................................................... 125 Class Consciousness and Religion ....................................................................... 128 5 Gender and Its Psychological Ramifications ......................................................... 131 Lumumba’s Trailblazing ........................................................................................ 133 The Fabric of Relations and Dissent ..................................................................... 137 5 MULTIPLE TRUTHS: JOURNEYS AND PROSPECTS IN TONI MORRISON’S TAR BABY ............................................................................................................ 145 Morrison’s Philosophical Leanings ........................................................................ 146 On the Move: Open Journeys ............................................................................... 148 Postmodern Truth ................................................................................................. 153 The Post-Civil Rights Domain: The Street Household .......................................... 160 Gender, Philosophy, and Cultural Narratives ........................................................ 167 A Native Son ......................................................................................................... 170 Multiple Truths ...................................................................................................... 173 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 179 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 192 6 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy A TANGLE OF DOUBLE BINDS: POSTMODERN DISCOURSE ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN NOVEL By John Lovell Glenn December 2012 Chair: Mark Reid Major: English A Tangle of Double Binds: Postmodern Discourse on Social Movements in the African American Novel examines the ways in which novels by African American writers have interrogated fifties and sixties black social movements. Within the context of postmodernism, I analyze the portrayal of several cultural and philosophical tensions that emerged out of concerns for racial equality and justice. I argue that the social changes occurring during the mid-twentieth century in America have impacted African Americans in two ways. For example, the first involves the cultural and generational tensions surfacing in black communities throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Second, the rights gained as a result of civic struggles, while contributing to the accessibility of mainstream sectors, have come at a high social cost to black individuals. In addition, these shifts result in a social dynamic that I describe as a double bind, in which an individual coming of age must not only negotiate the constraints of in-group traditions but also must navigate his or her way through repressive institutions in mainstream society. Ultimately, the novels I cover in this project constitute discourses on postmodernity and black social movements. In particular, African American writers 7 have developed men and women protagonists who deploy a self-concept that embraces the social fragmentation rife in the contemporary era. With this perspective, I give close readings of the following texts: Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, Alice Walker’s Meridian, John Oliver Killens’s The Cotillion: Or, One Good Bull is Half the Herd, and Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby. Throughout this project, I seek to answer the following questions: How have contemporary black writers grappled with the socioeconomic changes in American society since the 1960s? What are the implications of rights movements for postmodern society? And how have particular movements impacted individual autonomy among African Americans? Finally, my reading of each text is organized around the protagonists who enact forms of resistance that hedge against problematic group practices and stave off cooptation in hegemonic American systems. 8 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters is a novel about cultural wholeness and healing. Bambara initiates a journey toward alternatives to dominant American norms, which plays out in spiritual, social, and political matters. Throughout the novel, Velma Henry seeks wholeness while guided by Minnie Ransom, a healer in the Claybourne community. A mother, a Civil Rights activist, and an employee at Transchemical (a chemical plant outside the Claybourne), Velma’s condition is the result of a failed suicide attempt. Even prior to this, her efforts prove to be self-sabotaging. In one scene, Velma participates in a brutal protest march that leaves her sullied and outraged. At the end of the march, a charismatic Civil Rights leader pulls up in a limo: “He looked a bit like King, had a delivery similar to Malcolm’s, dressed like Stokely, had