The crisis of white imagination: Towards the literary abolition of whiteness
Abstract
This project traces the literary development of critical race theories concerning whiteness in white American literature beginning in the late nineteenth century to the present. It specifically examines the roles authors and social critics Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Adam Mansbach have had in constructing and (re)constructing images of whiteness through their literature. The imagery and insight they provide respectively in the novels—Pudd’nhead Wilson, The Great Gatsby, and Angry Black White Boy, or the Miscegenation of Macon Detornay—participate in the evolution of race discourse and the critical study of whiteness in American society, which has scholars in the current discussion of neo-abolitionism—the abolishing of white as a racial identity and position of privilege.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Patton, Purdue University.
Subject Area
American studies|American literature|Ethnic studies
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