Date of Award
5-1-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in English
First Advisor
Patrick Alexander
Second Advisor
Leigh Anne Duck
Third Advisor
Jay Watson
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
This dissertation, “The Doubled Box: Resistance Against Carceral Power and Gendered Norms Within Black Angeleno Narratives,” investigates post-World War II Los Angeles by providing a critical examination of Black Angeleno residence and culture in an understudied interdisciplinary context: that of African American literature and critical prison studies scholarship. As indicated in its title, this dissertation engages two recent critical frameworks that have assessed the tension between limits and possibilities in Black life and Black creative expression: African American literary scholar Henry Louis Gates’s conception of the black box and Rashad Shabazz’s understanding of carceral power, as framed within the field of critical prison studies. In addition, this dissertation introduces my theoretical framework of “relations of abolitionist care,” which establishes a way of both conceptualizing abolitionist labor outside of the purely political realm and expanding critical attention to its impact in domestic and social domains. This dissertation foregrounds both critical frameworks in scrutinizing carceral power and gender norms as an interconnected experience of confinement that Black Angelenos have endured, resisted, and expressed through two constant and entangled emotions: humiliation and anger.
Recommended Citation
DeBrock, Jacob Daniel, "The Doubled Box: Resistance Against Carceral Power and Gendered Norms Within Black Angeleno Narratives" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 8810.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/8810