Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2018, English/Literature

This project explores the emotional and geographic mobility of African Americansduring the Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance through a close reading of characters in Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Richard Wright's Native Son. Using Alain Locke's argument for the New Negro, Louis Althusser's understanding of ideologies and institutions, and Michel Foucault's notion of panoptic surveillance, I argue that Helga Crane and Bigger Thomas exhibit how African American characters were able to exhibit mobility and agency, or the lack thereof, throughout their texts. This thesis argues against representations of Quicksand as just the “tragic mulatta” trope and Native Son as strictly a protest novel. Through this thesis, I analyze how both of these novels work within intricate intersections of race, gender, and class to showcase the limitations to Locke's New Negro status and the opportunities available to women and men of a certain class during the Great Migration.

Committee: Jolie Sheffer Ph. D. (Advisor); Kimberly Coates Ph. D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; Literature

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2014, English

Salome: Reviving the Dark Lady is a rationale for an impending interdisciplinary reimagining of the literary Dark Lady for the early twenty-first century. The work comprises of poetry, dance, and film. This thesis recounts the history of beauty in the Early Modern Period and discusses the historical context of the Dark Lady to provide a frame for the journey of marginalized archetype into the twenty-first century. The choreopoem itself is built upon Salome, the character from Elizabeth Cary's1613 closet drama "The Tragedy of Mariam Fair Queen of Jewry." The choreopoem contains transliterated soliloquies of the princess interspersed through original poems and prose inspired by works of spoken-word artist Andrea Gibson, twentieth-century Afro-Scandinavian author Nella Larsen, and various literary and cultural critics.

Committee: Albino Carrillo (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American Literature; Bible; British and Irish Literature; Comparative Literature; Cultural Anthropology; Dance; European Studies; Experiments; Folklore; Gender; Language Arts; Literature; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Modern History; Religion; Scandinavian Studies; Theater; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2001, English (Arts and Sciences)

The dissertation examines how two women authors of mixed-race, Nella Larsen and Winnifred Eaton (Onoto Watanna), resisted American identity politics in their works. The ideological complexities of mixed-race identity, which is “in-between” races, are the focus of my argument. To discuss what Judith Butler calls “the performativity of identity” in the interracial context, “passing,” “masquerading” and “mimicking” are used as key strategies. I examine whether the space of hybridity, in which the incompatible notions of difference and sameness exist together, opens up the horizon of transformation of significations. In Chapter One, I discuss how Larsen used her “mulatto” heroines to criticize the essentialist notion of identity. I probe how crossing boundaries (passing, geographical crossing and transgressing sexual norms) functions in her novels. In Chapter Two, I examine the works of Winnifred Eaton, who passed as Japanese in her authorship. By crossing the “authentic” ethnic boundaries and placing herself in a fictional identity, Eaton challenged racism and sexism. The dynamics of Orientalism, race and gender in Eaton's works are examined in this chapter. Postmodern feminist theories and postcolonial theories are used in tandem to support my argument, which tries to discuss how the system of racial oppression operates in multi-racial/multi-ethnic women's literature.

Committee: David McWilliams (Advisor) Subjects: