Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

English

Advisor

Robert F. Reid-Pharr

Subject Categories

African American Studies | American Literature | Higher Education Administration | Higher Education and Teaching | Literature in English, North America

Keywords

Academic Fiction, Academic Novels

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the academic novel - a literary genre which fictionalizes the lives of students and professors in institutions of higher education. In particular this project focuses on academic novels written by black writers and which address issues in black higher education. This dissertation has two concurrent objectives: 1) to examine the academic novel as a particular genre of literature, and to highlight some specific novels on black American identity within this genre, and 2) to illustrate the pedagogical value of academic fiction. Through the ancient practice of storytelling, academic novels link the travails of the individual student or professor to a bigger story about the history and origin and purpose of colleges and universities. The "Introduction" provides a basic overview of the academic novel, the black academic novel, and an analysis of the history of black higher education through discourses of over-education. Chapter One, "Toward a Theory of the Black Academic Novel," provides a literature review of criticism on academic fiction and makes connections with black literary criticism in order to create a framework for reading black academic novels. This chapter also includes a historical survey of black academic fiction leading up to the three novels in the following chapters, which were written after the 1980s, and which are framed by discussions of culture wars and capitalism. Chapter Two, "Culture Warriors" is an examination of Ishmael Reed's Japanese by Spring (1993) in the context of the "culture wars" and the development of multiculturalism in higher education. Chapter Three, "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong," examines Percival Everett's Erasure (2001) and the politics of authenticity in black literary and cultural production. Chapter Four, "Homo Academicus" is an interpretation of Samuel R. Delany's The Mad Man (1994:2002) as an academic novel, showing how the novel articulates a queer black intellectual practice as a challenge to discourses of respectability, particularly during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Conclusion speculates on the future, and possible obsolescence, of the novel (including the black academic novel) as a literary form, and the role of black intellectuals in the digital humanities.

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