Date of Award
1-1-2020
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in English
First Advisor
Leigh Anne Duck
Second Advisor
Jay D. Watson
Third Advisor
Shennette Garrett-Scott
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
This dissertation broadens the definition of confinement literature, a critical and developing subfield in African American literary studies. It argues that contemporary Black women writers are the early theorists of the complex and insidious reach of the U.S. prison-industrial complex. Through their probing representations of Black female characters’ interactions with state-sanctioned social control and patriarchal violence, Gayl Jones, Alice Walker, Suzan-Lori Parks, and DaMaris B. Hill expand critical understandings of confinement and imprisonment. This dissertation contends that these writers’ depictions of sexual and reproductive control as part of the developing carceral state reveal how confinement and imprisonment operate on intersecting oppressions of race and gender. As a purposefully interdisciplinary endeavor, “Carceral Matrix” merges African American literary studies, Black feminist theory, and critical prison studies to 1) document the rich but often overlooked literary history of Black women’s responses to confinement, state surveillance, and violence and 2) theorize how Black women writers have used their respective genres to explore these methods of social control.
Recommended Citation
Serraes, Allison Michelle, "Carceral Matrix: Black Women's Writing In Response To Mass Incarceration, 1963-2019" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1874.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1874