Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Philosophy

Committee Chair

Lindsey Stewart

Committee Member

Michael J Monahan

Committee Member

Jameliah I Shorter-Bourhanou

Committee Member

Daniel J Smith

Abstract

This portfolio attempts, through the examination of her literary and social/political environment, to position Ida B. Wells-Barnett within the longer tradition of black writers who utilized the gothic to make sense of the black experience in America. It was through this means that these writers attempted to reflect back to this nation the horrific nature of black oppression. The first chapter interrogates where Wells-Barnett lands in this line. She was born toward the end of legal enslavement and came into her writing career during an era of racialized violence that many hoped, she argued, would reestablish, or maintain, the racial hierarchy established during enslavement. This desire was inextricably tied to that racial hierarchy, maintaining an horrific environment. Thus, Wells argues that lynching, in all its horror, was a sign of a gothic world. The second chapter focuses on the relationship between the practice of lynching and monstrosity. Monsters are an essential figure of the gothic. It is, thus, reasonable to expect them to ‘appear’ in relation to lynching. However, to understand that relationship one must be able to ‘read’ them. This chapter engages her early long-form pamphlets—Southern Horrors and Red Record—with an eye toward understanding her reading of those monsters. Through this reading Wells reveals that the myths/‘excuses’ used to justify lynching created a system of rationalization that transcended any ‘facts’ or ‘truths’ regarding lynching’s utilization. In other words, there were rationales used that did not match the lived experience of the victims or perpetrators of the practice. Through her reading Wells revealed that the epistemological frameworks of her day were inverted, the ‘truth’ she was committed to shedding light on. The third chapter examines Wells-Barnett’s understanding of the relationship between the gothic and the law. She revealed that there was actually an ‘unwritten’ law that was lurking underneath the legal systems of her day. The ‘spirit’ of this law reached back to enslavement, of which lynching was an expression. Wells-Barnett’s interpretation of this ‘unwritten’ law raises important questions about how much of the gothic remains in this nation.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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