Revolutionary Love and Rage: Destabilizing Colonialism, White Supremacy, & Transphobia

Author

Valerie Fryer-Davis, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Date of Degree

6-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

English

Advisor

Peter Hitchcock

Committee Members

Nathalie Etoke

Ashley Dawson

Subject Categories

African American Studies | African Languages and Societies | Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory | Ethnic Studies | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies | Modern Literature | Queer Studies | Women's Studies

Keywords

Black Feminism, African and African Diaspora Literature, Rage, Love, Revolutionary Struggle, Transgender

Abstract

This dissertation explores revolutionary love and rage in the fight against racial, gender, class, environmental, and sexuality-based oppressions. Building from African, Queer, and Decolonial Theory, and using interdisciplinary methods such as literary and historical analysis, biomythography, and personal experience, the dissertation connects these affects to argue that creating long-standing, systemic change can only be successful when balancing the need for love with the urgency of rage. The two temper each other: while rage keeps activists focused against a common enemy and incites bursts of action against injustice, love nourishes the fight long-term through healing injuries and cultivating a community of the oppressed. Both affects destabilize colonial violence against Black (and) trans communities and unfix colonial world imaginaries that structure our world.

The project is structured into four chapters. In Chapter 1, I build from Myisha Cherry’s work on rage to discuss antiracist Black rage and how that differs from white rage that is reactionary and reinforces systemic white supremacy. I then explore five forms of love and their unique value for revolutionary struggle through an analysis of Paule Marshall’s literary works: self-love, agape love (moral), philia love (friendship or community), storge love (parental), and eros love (sexual or romantic). Chapter 2 explores how transness itself might be a useful method for revolutionary struggle, building from Marquis Bey’s work on Black trans feminism by analyzing the love and rage of trans people in colonial circumstances. This argument brings postcolonial discussions of race together with Queer Theory because transphobia is historically linked to colonial racism. Through an analysis of Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night alongside the work of Black trans abolitionists CeCe McDonald and Miss Major, I reveal how trans rage destroys oppressive structures at the same time as creating space for trans love to flourish. Chapter 3 of the dissertation argues that current revolutionary struggles should draw upon a history of Black revolution from what I call the Black Atlantic Memory Bank. I argue that recovery of the memory bank relies on spiritual Love and Rage (capitalized to denote spiritual and historical significance) to heal Black spiritual community, building from Saidiya Hartman’s work on the Black archive. This chapter begins to theorize how to scale a revolutionary theory of love and rage for global liberation and connect the oppressed across space and time. Finally, Chapter 4 explores environmental racism in Nigeria, arguing that we must expand our ethical framework to have love of the environment and rage against its destruction if humanity is to survive. Through a trans reinterpretation of Igbo cosmology, I argue we can read the land as a trans Mother that one must fight with Rage and Love to defend. I suggest we might lean into trans epistemology to reconceptualize the fight for climate activism.

This dissertation theorizes that Black trans affect is central to revolutionary work. While Chapters 1 and 2 sketch out the basic theory of Black trans love and rage, Chapters 3 and 4 scale these theories to hypothesize global spiritual revolution. The dissertation makes a significant contribution to recent African and African diaspora, environmental, political, and queer scholarship that grapples with how to fight against transphobic and racist colonial violence, maintaining that rage is both destructive and creative, while love cultivates a home base from which activists might launch rageful attacks.

Recommended Citation

Fryer-Davis, Valerie, "Revolutionary Love and Rage: Destabilizing Colonialism, White Supremacy, & Transphobia" (2025). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6291