Twenty-second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The social categorization of childhood historically overlooked the experiences of Black children while gatekeeping the worldview of innocence and normative codes of development. Moreover, literature and cultural productions facilitated this exclusionary agenda by stereotyping Black children and their performances of childhood. Recent debates in the academic discipline of Childhood Studies attempt to reconceptualize Black childhood and thereby unravel the systemic inequalities affecting the formative years of Black children. In this context, the paper reads Jesmyn Ward’s novel Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) to delineate the contemporary representation of Black childhoods. Amid the ongoing movements for Black dignity, Ward’s oeuvre grabs attention by representing diverse childhood experiences. Ward’s narrative strategy involves delineating family sagas through young protagonists navigating the turbulent terrains of deep-rooted systemic racism. By engaging with the pertinent question of gatekeeping childhood from Black children, the study interrogates the doctrines of childhood. Drawing on Judith Butler’s observations of precarity, this paper examines the novel Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) while maintaining the vantage point of childhood studies. A thorough analysis of the novel indicates that the afterlife of slavery continues to have ripple effects on Black childhoods and render them precarious. By engaging with the novel in the context of Black Lives Matter, the study concludes by commenting on Black children’s resilience in the face of impending adversity.