Outside relationality: autobiographical deformations and the literary lineage of Afro-pessimism in

312 Pages·2012·1.31 MB·English

UC San Diego
UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Outside relationality : autobiographical deformations and the literary lineage of Afro-
pessimism in 20th and 21st century African American literature
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2h76s393
Author
Pak, Yumi
Publication Date
2012

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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University of California
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

Outside Relationality: Autobiographical Deformations and the Literary Lineage of
Afro-pessimism in 20th and 21st Century African American Literature

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor
of Philosophy

in

Literature

by

Yumi Pak

Committee in charge:

Professor Camille F. Forbes, Chair
Professor Patrick Anderson
Professor Dennis R. Childs
Professor Fatima El-Tayeb
Professor Lisa Lowe

2012
Copyright ©

Yumi Pak, 2012

All rights reserved.
The Dissertation of Yumi Pak is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for
publication on microfilm and electronically:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Chair

University of California, San Diego
2012

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Signature Page………………………………………………………………………… iii

Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………... iv

List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………. v

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………… vi

Vita……………………………………………………………………………………. xii

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….. xiii

Introduction………………………………………………………………………….... 1

Chapter One – Alternative Modernity, Alternative Blackness: Lynching and the Oracular
Swan-song of Jean Toomer’s Cane…………………………………………………… 30

Chapter Two – “A Being Outside of Relationality”: Queering Natal Alienation in Chester
Himes’ Yesterday Will Make You Cry……………………………………………….… 94

Chapter Three – The Futility/Futurity of Exile: James Baldwin and the “Irrevocable
Condition” of Giovanni’s Room………………………………………………………. 152

Chapter Four – The Afterlife of Slavery: Singing the Unspeakable Familial/Familiarity in
Gayl Jones’ Corregidora……………………………………………………………… 210

Conclusion – Frank B. Wilderson, III and the Cosmic Hobo………………………… 268

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….……. 277

iv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1.1: The Slave Ship………………………………………………………….… 1

v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While my time as a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego,
officially began in September 2005 – and work on the dissertation started in earnest in
September 2009, the quarter after the completion of my qualifying exams – the grounds
for my formative literary education and concurrent commitment to social justice and the
possibilities of radical politics were laid long before I even recognized academia as a
potential site of affiliation and belonging. No graduate student ever comes of age on
her/his own, and at this time I would like to recognize the numerous individuals whose
loving encouragement and intellectual generosity grace and influence my life.
I must begin by thanking my dissertation committee for their unflagging support
during the reading and writing process which seemed, at times, both interminable and
relentless. Camille F. Forbes, Dennis R. Childs, Fatima El-Tayeb, Lisa Lowe and Patrick
Anderson, this project would never have come to fruition without the countless hours,
days, weeks, years, you spent offering constructive critiques and suggestions for
improvement, illuminating methodological and theoretical footpaths that I was yet
unaware of. I count myself as so incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to be
guided by all of you in seminars and during office hours. I am exceedingly thankful to
two members in particular: my committee chair, Camille F. Forbes, and Patrick Anderson
in the Department of Communication. Camille, I still remember walking into your office
with a nascent abstract for a qualifying paper that brought together Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Jean Toomer’s Cane, and the incredible patience you
showed while I stumbled over questions that I can now recognize as panicked concerns
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about my ability to actually do this work, as opposed to concrete queries about the
potential project. Since then, you read over everything I submitted, even if it was merely
a few pages of half-formed ideas and close readings, and, perhaps more importantly, you
knew when to push me to go further, to venture outside my academic comfort zone and
allow myself to be unsettled in my lack of knowledge, to recognize that unsettlement as
sites rich with budding opportunities for intellectual growth and contribution. Patrick, I
cannot encapsulate everything you have done for me since I enrolled in your seminar on
performance studies in 2007. You have exemplified every characteristic of a mentor and
scholar I can only hope to emulate half as well someday – kindness, warmth, brilliance
and a sense of humor that always made me leave our meetings revitalized and renewed in
my excitement in the dissertation. Thank you both, so very much, for being my teachers
and my guides. I am also grateful to the Department of Literature for providing me with
funding toward completing the dissertation in the forms of the departmental One-Quarter
Dissertation Fellowship (Fall 2011) and the Summer Research Grant (Summer 2011,
Summer 2010).
I have also had the good luck of having been taught by amazing teachers and
professors during my high school and university years; it would be remiss of me to ignore
the undeniable influences they had on my growth as a student of literature. At Castro
Valley High School, I encountered many wonderful teachers in numerous subjects, but
three of them deserve special mention: Peter Brewer (the now defunct Science
Fiction/Fantasy Literature), Anne Parris (AP Senior English and Literature and Film),
and Doug Rogers (Advanced Sophomore English). You three were my biggest
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inspirations during those uncertain, frustrating years, and I looked to you to see the kind
of reader and writer I wanted to be – someone who is always in love with the words, with
the craft of writing, but also with a commitment to integrity and honesty that I still aspire
to today. Jody Greene and Karen Tei Yamashita were the two most formative professors
during my time at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For teaching me to always
question the concept of “the great books” and the canon, for introducing me to Michel
Foucault, Jessica Hagedorn, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Aphra Behn, and Orlando
Patterson, for taking what I thought was an individual, illogical anger and giving me the
vocabulary to name it as reactions and responses to structures and histories of oppression,
and for giving me a community that I did not know I belonged to and a voice I did not
know I had, I can never thank you enough.
Graduate school would have been an impossibility without the love and support of
a loyal group of friends, a family by choice, in San Diego, many of whom I am also so
proud to name as my colleagues. To my loves – Viviana MacManus, Caralyn Bialo, Sean
Dinces, Jodi A. Eisenberg, Jason Farr, Joo Ok Kim, Lauren Heintz, Julie Burelle and
Nicolette Cook – this dissertation is finished largely in part because of your constant
friendship, emotional nurturance and, more pragmatically, the endless cups of coffee you
bought for me while we camped out in various cafes for hours on end. The dedication
you show to your craft, your courage despite the numerous difficulties that you/we
encountered over the years, as students and individuals, and your ability to make me
laugh, all the time, around the clock, inspire me to work even harder in an attempt to
match who all of you are, as intellectuals and as my friends. Although it would take far
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too long to acknowledge each person individually, I want to take a moment to emphasize,
to the best of my capability, the love and care that I got from Viviana MacManus, who, as
my housemate of five years, saw me at my best and worst during every step of this
process and never stopped cheering me on, particularly at 2:00 a.m. when I ran low on
both chocolate and patience with myself. Vivi, I am not eloquent enough to even
remotely come close to describing what your friendship and love have meant to me, and
how much I admire you and everything that you have accomplished during our
friendship. You kept me sane, healthy, laughing and growing during the past seven years,
and are, in so many ways that I cannot name, so very inspirational to me. Thank you for
helping me create a place to call home. To all of you, where would I – or this dissertation
– be, without you?
I am also incredibly lucky to have found an academic community outside of San
Diego to keep me on task when I headed for the cooler, windier climate of Northern
California. Bonnie Rhee Andryeyev, my former TA at the University of California, Santa
Cruz, and now friend so close to my heart, thank you for all of our study dates, coffees
and donuts in San Francisco. I remember being so moved by the way you read and taught
literature when I was an undergraduate student, and I still hold so much admiration for
the care you take with close reading and the attention to detail and craft you have in your
own work. In 2010, Patrick Anderson nominated me to participate in the UC
International Performance and Culture Multicampus Research Group. During this week-
long workshop at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I met Sampada Aranke
(University of California, Davis) and Omar Ricks (University of California, Berkeley),
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