Caucasia, Part I

1
Caucasia, Part I

• Mini-Lecture 12Caucasia
• COM 490
• Professor Ralina Joseph

2
Reading Fiction as a Cultural Studies Scholar

• Consider
• Historical time period in which book came out
• Historical time period in which books set (esp.
  if theyre different like in Caucasia).
• A late twentieth century cultural product can be
  read as a work that would engage with or against
  the ideals of the constructedness of race (Hall,
  Graves, Omi and Winant) and gender (Garber,
  Butler, Alsop et al., Anzaldua).
• Roles race and gender play in the lives of our
  characters in Caucasia
• Are race and gender inconsequential identity
  categories or are they real, important
  signifiers of power? Does this binary ring true
  in Caucasia? Is it both? Does it ever switch?

3
Danzy Senna

• Born 1970 in Boston
• Caucasia (1998)
• Symptomatic (2003)

4
Close Reading Strategies

• Page 1 unpack quotes, talk about the characters,
  talk about some of the devices and themes in the
  novel.
• What does it mean to be devoid of a name or a
  history?

5
Negritude for Beginners

• Break down
• So Blackness is something that must be taught
  and isnt something necessarily inherent. This
  fits very much with Stuart Halls ideas of the
  constructed nature of identity categories.
• Why is the first chapter entitled face?

6
Characters

• Birdie
• Cole
• Sandy
• Deck
• Aunt Dot
• Ronnie Parkman
• Redbone (COINTELPRO)
• Carmen
• Grandmother

7
Elemeno

• Describe different takes on it
• Birdie and Cole
• Sandy and Deck
• Grandmother

8
Invisibility/Hyper-visibility

• Who is invisible in this first part of Caucasia?
  Sig?
• Who is always extra-visible (hyper-visible)?
  Sig?
• When do these roles shift?