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SUBVERTING BLACKFACE AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF AMERICAN IDENTITY IN JOHN BERRYMAN'S 77 DREAM SONGS

Rosby, Amy
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1216665711

Abstract Details

2008, Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
John Berryman has been criticized for his employment of white performance of blackface minstrelsy's conventions and dialect in 77 Dream Songs because of the complex history of this tradition of blackface's problematic performance of racial fantasy and because of Berryman's designation as a white, confessional poet. However, when one observes the history of this tradition of minstrelsy, its initial reception, its "transcodification" into the white American racial ideology, and subsequent scholarly analyses of its implications, it is evident that Berryman creates an anti-model of minstrelsy which consequently becomes a minstrelsy of "whiteness." Through this anti-model, which shifts the public gaze from "blackness" to "whiteness," Berryman deconstructs each, eliminating the justification for unequal political power based on the faulty ideology of difference.
Michael Dumanis, PhD (Committee Chair)
Jeff Karem, PhD (Committee Member)
Adrienne Gosselin, PhD (Committee Member)
56 p.
American Literature; Literature
John Berryman; 77 Dream Songs; blackface minstrelsy

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Rosby, A. (2008). SUBVERTING BLACKFACE AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF AMERICAN IDENTITY IN JOHN BERRYMAN'S 77 DREAM SONGS [Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1216665711

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Rosby, Amy. SUBVERTING BLACKFACE AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF AMERICAN IDENTITY IN JOHN BERRYMAN'S 77 DREAM SONGS. 2008. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1216665711.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Rosby, Amy. "SUBVERTING BLACKFACE AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF AMERICAN IDENTITY IN JOHN BERRYMAN'S 77 DREAM SONGS." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1216665711

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

csu1216665711
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© 2008, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Cleveland State University and OhioLINK.