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Natural Disasters and Citizenship: Belonging Through Ecology in African American Writing

Alnawaiseh, Ali M
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4239-4792
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1571755777462077

Abstract Details

2019, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
For decades, white Americans’ nature writing has been the focus of ecocriticism, which has failed to recognize the natural elements in minority groups’ writing. In addition, environmental racism has made it difficult for non-white groups to be representatives of nature or even talk about it. This dissertation focuses on links between representations of nature and concepts of citizenship in selected African American writing. It primarily focuses on two natural disasters from an ecocritical perspective: the Great Flood of 1927 and Hurricane Katrina. Through the analysis of texts written by Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and—more recently—Rosalyn Story, this study shows that African American natural experiences have been racialized, and that racism and the environment are closely intertwined in America. The correlation between racism and nature has participated in the alienation of African Americans from the American landscape and thereby complicates this group’s pursuit of meaningful citizenship. As this dissertation shows, since the beginning of the twentieth century, several African American writers began to associate black Americans’ challenges with curtailed or politicized access to the natural environment. These writers strive to link racial injustice to the American landscape in hopes of attaining full citizenship and belonging for black Americans. In Hughes’s, Wright’s, and Story’s works, natural disasters become occasions to make African Americans visible and reimagine their existence within the American landscape, as well as to enforce their belonging to the American traditions. The implementation of natural disasters in these narratives is an attempt to enable African Americans to have more choices about the diaspora via emphasizing the concept of the U.S. as the permanent home of these populations. Additionally, these texts endeavor to rightfully give African Americans spaces to talk about the American environment, a tradition they have been excluded from and/or forced to renounce.
Babacar M'Baye (Committee Chair)
Ryan Hediger (Committee Co-Chair)
Christopher Roman (Committee Member)
Kenneth Bindas (Committee Member)
Leonne Hudson (Committee Member)
243 p.
American Literature; Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Alnawaiseh, A. M. (2019). Natural Disasters and Citizenship: Belonging Through Ecology in African American Writing [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1571755777462077

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Alnawaiseh, Ali. Natural Disasters and Citizenship: Belonging Through Ecology in African American Writing. 2019. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1571755777462077.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Alnawaiseh, Ali. "Natural Disasters and Citizenship: Belonging Through Ecology in African American Writing." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1571755777462077

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1571755777462077
363
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.