Abstract
This project argues that postwar artists of color—Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, Octavia Butler, Ruth Ozeki, Boots Riley, Art Spiegelman—formulated the relationship between race and species for a multispecies ethics. "Race and Species" redresses the schism between animal studies and scholarship on race, two fields that regard the comparison between racialized humans and nonhuman animals as either expedient for animal liberation or appropriative of racial violence. Juxtaposing material from the Enlightenment history of science with twentieth-century aesthetic objects, "Race and Species" illustrates how postwar authors suture together and revise the material, rhetorical, and ethical connections between race and species. "
Committee Chair
Anca Parvulescu
Committee Members
Rafia Zafar, William J. Maxwell, Long Le-Khac, Rebecca Wanzo,
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Author's Department
English and Comparative Literature
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
Spring 5-15-2020
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/6jwh-ek77
Author's ORCID
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3649-5573
Recommended Citation
Pergadia, Samantha, "Race and Species: Reimagining the Ethics of Comparison in Contemporary American Fiction" (2020). Arts & Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 2231.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/6jwh-ek77