Black Utopia and Body Agency in Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts
After situating Rivers Solomon’s debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts(2017) as a Black utopia following Zamalin’s definition of the genre, this essay will explore the textfrom the intra-acting lenses of black antihumanism, critical posthumanism, and queer kinship. I contend that Solomon’s novel surpa...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Sevilla (US) |
| Repositorio: | idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:idus________::107eee9b9475903784535c76b0ba76ed |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/11441/185301 http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/REN.2025.i29.6 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Black utopia Afrofuturism critical posthumanism black antihumanism agency queer kinship neurodivergence utopía negra afrofuturismo posthumanismo crítico antihumanismo negro agencia parentesco no heteronormativo neurodivergencia |
| Sumario: | After situating Rivers Solomon’s debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts(2017) as a Black utopia following Zamalin’s definition of the genre, this essay will explore the textfrom the intra-acting lenses of black antihumanism, critical posthumanism, and queer kinship. I contend that Solomon’s novel surpasses the notions of Afrofuturism and (white) critical posthumanism alike through its portrayal of the main characters’ genderand sexual non-conformity and the radical kinship bonds they develop among themselves and with the nonhuman in the protagonist’s case. Furthermore, by the characters’ willful control and agency over their own bodies and the future possibilities envisioned in its open ending, Solomon’s textsubverts and explodes the Western, Enlightenment, colonial construction of white (civilized) subjecthood as opposed to the animalization of the blackbodyand the universalist, exceptionalist logic of state-sanctioned brutality inflicted on African Americans since Antebellum times. |
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