RE-MEMBERING TRAUMA IN THE FLESH: LITERARY AND PERFORMATIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF RACE AND GENDER IN THE AMERICASOhmer, Sarah S. (2012) RE-MEMBERING TRAUMA IN THE FLESH: LITERARY AND PERFORMATIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF RACE AND GENDER IN THE AMERICAS. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)
AbstractThis dissertation explores transgenerational traumas of slavery, discrimination, social marginalization pertaining to women and youth of color. The analyses approach novels, testimonio, poetry and performances (1985-2005) with feminist, postcolonial, trauma studies, performance, and psychoanalytic criticism. The manuscript follows three avenues. First, I present a comparative analysis of three novels working through the “postmemory” of slavery. Then I analyze various literary genres that cope with wounded bodies and fragmented identities. This second avenue splits into three streets, exploring repressed sexuality, and naming and internal colonization). Finally, I explore urban youths’ performance. This last avenue stops at various intersections to look at different dances and songs that heal urban youths and help them to affirm their own voices. With a postcolonial approach to trauma studies, Chapter two connects re-membering with storytelling and ghost embodiment. I observe how “neo-abolitionist” novels heal past traumas in Beloved by Toni Morrison, Ponciá Vicencio by Conceição Evaristo, and I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé. Chapter three discusses how texts work through violated maternity, fragmented identity and repressed sexuality. I compare scenes from the novels with the testimonios Reyita: The Life of a Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century (María de los Reyes Castillo) and Borderlands/La Frontera (Gloria Anzaldúa), and with poems fromselected Quilombhoje Collective’s “Cadernos Negros” volumes. This concludes the first section on re- membering trauma in writing. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss re-membering trauma through performance. Turning to documentaries on dance and music, I analyze performance that promotes self-esteem and agency for/by marginalized youths from Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro. The last two chapters include José Junior’s Da Favela para o mundo: A historia do grupo cultural AfroReggae, documentaries RIZE (David LaChapelle) and Favela Rising (Matt Mochary and Jeff Zymbalist), and music album Nenhum Motivo Explica a Guerra (AfroReggae). Any artwork presents the potential to heal trauma and its painful portrayal may be difficult to confront. The texts here present struggles against discrimination and selective amnesia bound to questions of race, socio-economic marginalization, and gender. They suggest resolutions through narrative re-membering—retrieval and re-integration of traumatic memories and afflictions into memory. Share
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