Overrepresented Man: Genre, Violence, and Hegemony
Abstract
This thesis explores the intersections between practices of epistemic production and distribution and material violence. Following the work of Sylvia Wynter, a framework of "genre" is engaged to provide an account of intersectional social identities, disproportionately distributed hegemonic violence (including both state and non-state actants), and the traditions and technologies of anti-colonial theoretical modeling, material praxis, and political work engendered by the rich, interdisciplinary body of Black Feminist thought. To address the continued practices of social, political, and material violence which sustain the Wynterian onto-epistemological "Overrepresentation of Man," an emergent archipelagic politics of heterogenous coalition-building presents a viable path of becoming for liberatory political projects.
General Audience Abstract
Racialized violence and state violence against racial minorities enjoys a long history within the United States and remains a topic of both popular controversy and political urgency. In more recent years, owing in part to several high-profile cases which have managed to garner significant media attention, a cultural conversation has emerged around topics such as representation, cultural biases, police brutality and militarization, and the Black Lives Matter movement (among others) has managed to inject popular American discourses on race with a more pointed critical edge. While cases of Black men’s unjust deaths have galvanized much of this revitalized political discourse, Patrisse Khan-Cullors reminds us that Black Lives Matter is not “just about boys and the police,” but rather addresses a problem which is part of a deeper systematic intersection of race, sex/gender, class and so on. Sylvia Wynter’s concept of “genre” provides a framework through which to explore these and other intersections, account for racialized violence, and to think toward the political work required to move toward a more liberatory and just frame of social existence.
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- Masters Theses [20806]