Abstract
I explore the intersections among melancholia and transoceanic journeys and how these concepts are situated in the Black Atlantic and Asian Pacific cultural conversations. The trope of melancholy is a symptom of problematic race and cultural relations and operates as protest against the hegemony. I address how these literary tropes help us understand and create opportunities for students to explore racial melancholia. The ethnic canon must not become a homogenized “difference” of neutralized conflict. My study considers how melancholy operates as a refusal by ethnic subjects and texts to be co-opted into a center that represents a manageable and ultimately silenced “other.” Like these scholars who refuse the category of victimhood, I assert that the trope of melancholy is a force for restitution. This recursive structure is a melancholic trope that refuses to give closure to racial grievance. Because the melancholic subject mourns the loss of the American ideal of a promising future, and in this study, the failure of multiculturalism to create cultural revolution, the melancholic figure reattaches itself to the past. However, the connection to the past is ruptured through violence and lost histories. Thus, the protagonist claims ownership of the temporal space of memory. Exploring these themes in literature provides venues for students to understand racial melancholia in their lived experiences. The outcomes of well-developed curriculum include students’ ability to express, negotiate identity and meaning in a diverse community. I share various activities to establish a learning community that understands diversity and learns from it.
Presenters
Jennifer Arias SweeneyAdjunct Faculty, Education , Northwestern University, Illinois, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Diversity, Race, Literature, Education, Curriculum, Multiculturalism, American Literature
