Date of Award
2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Philosophy (Ph.D)
Department
English
First Advisor
Shanté Smalls
Second Advisor
Dohra Ahmad
Third Advisor
LaToya Sawyer
Abstract
The impossible strive towards “human” has dominated much of Black feminist studies, but there are scholars such as Sylvia Wynter, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Alex Weheliye, and Octavia Butler who've re-configured the concept of humanity in their work by embracing different species and technologies that could provide liberation for Black women. My dissertation explores these new spaces, using Wynter’s “demonic ground” theory as a backbone, to conceptualize Black post-humanism, animality, and the embracing of the “demonic” as radical tools of empowerment. My dissertation aims to establish the consistent and perpetual violence that Black women—from past to present—have endured by living on corrupted land and under violent visual policing. I argue, though, that there is liberation, redemption, and complete autonomy found within the fraught space of hyper-visualization that can be manipulated by Black women through non-conforming and non-western aspects of queer aesthetic, land inferiority, radical performance, and grotesque sexuality. My dissertations suggests that Black women must “dispose” of their body, which is a theoretical leap into freedom; the ridding of body is a mental abandonment of western norms and appropriateness that encourages the body to be used as a vessel to rupture, fracture, and damage.
Recommended Citation
Nathaniel, Amity S., "ANIMAL INSTINCT: RADICAL BLACK FEMINISM AND THE VIRTUE OF THE DEMONIC" (2023). Theses and Dissertations. 589.
https://scholar.stjohns.edu/theses_dissertations/589