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Olla, Nasrin Culler, Jonathan Dwight Crawford, Margo Caruth, Cathy 2019-10-15T16:51:13Z 2023-08-29T06:00:16Z 2019-08-30 ProQuest Submission ID: 11668 ProQuest Publication ID: 22615309 https://hdl.handle.net/1813/67748 https://doi.org/10.7298/6wp1-vb68 11050734 My dissertation engages anew with the theme of alterity across a range of contemporary Afrodiasporic literature. Over the last four decades, scholarly debates around the statues of “the other” have led to a number of theoretical approaches, which focus on questions of responsibility, recovery, and recuperation. In contrast, the diasporic literature explored in this dissertation defends a shared opacity as the ground of ethical life, thereby reimagining our relation to distant geographies, lost ancestries, broken inheritances, and shattered subjectivities. Offering readings of writers such as Edwidge Danticat, Fred Moten, M. NourbeSe Philip, Dionne Brand, and Claudia Rankine, this dissertation amplifies the call for a heightened awareness of the way opacity is woven into both our quotidian encounters and collective political life in a manner we cannot simply disown. Each chapter of this dissertation, then, focuses on an aporetic affective state—such as quietude, exhaustion, forgetfulness, and uncertainty—which deactivates or stands in the way of the reader’s desire for immediacy, transparency, and recuperation. In so doing, we discover a diasporic tradition that clamors not for recognition, but for an ethical collectivity grounded in the respect for the opaque other whom we welcome, without masterfully knowing or understanding. en_US English literature Alterity Opacity African Diaspora Ethics African American studies Reaching for Opacity: Contemporary Afrodiasporic Literature dissertation or thesis application/pdf English Language and Literature Cornell University Doctor of Philosophy Ph.D., English Language and Literature https://hdl.handle.net/1813/59810 Publication Cornell Theses and Dissertations Olla, Nasrin 5893a6ea-7af3-41d7-abc6-04bcd26ab5df open.access open.access <Publication xmlns="https://www.openaire.eu/cerif-profile/1.1/" id="0f5c5d05-ea25-4e34-b534-1b5a44daa8fb"> <Type xmlns="https://www.openaire.eu/cerif-profile/vocab/COAR_Publication_Types">http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843</Type> <Language>en_US</Language> <Title>Reaching for Opacity: Contemporary Afrodiasporic Literature</Title> <PublishedIn> <Publication> </Publication> </PublishedIn> <PublicationDate>2019-08-30</PublicationDate> <DOI>https://doi.org/10.7298/6wp1-vb68</DOI> <Authors> <Author> <DisplayName>Olla, Nasrin</DisplayName> <Affiliation> <OrgUnit> </OrgUnit> </Affiliation> </Author> </Authors> <Editors> </Editors> <Publishers> <Publisher> <OrgUnit /> </Publisher> </Publishers> <Keyword>English literature</Keyword> <Keyword>Alterity</Keyword> <Keyword>Opacity</Keyword> <Keyword>African Diaspora</Keyword> <Keyword>Ethics</Keyword> <Keyword>African American studies</Keyword> <Abstract>My dissertation engages anew with the theme of alterity across a range of contemporary Afrodiasporic literature. Over the last four decades, scholarly debates around the statues of “the other” have led to a number of theoretical approaches, which focus on questions of responsibility, recovery, and recuperation. In contrast, the diasporic literature explored in this dissertation defends a shared opacity as the ground of ethical life, thereby reimagining our relation to distant geographies, lost ancestries, broken inheritances, and shattered subjectivities. Offering readings of writers such as Edwidge Danticat, Fred Moten, M. NourbeSe Philip, Dionne Brand, and Claudia Rankine, this dissertation amplifies the call for a heightened awareness of the way opacity is woven into both our quotidian encounters and collective political life in a manner we cannot simply disown. Each chapter of this dissertation, then, focuses on an aporetic affective state—such as quietude, exhaustion, forgetfulness, and uncertainty—which deactivates or stands in the way of the reader’s desire for immediacy, transparency, and recuperation. In so doing, we discover a diasporic tradition that clamors not for recognition, but for an ethical collectivity grounded in the respect for the opaque other whom we welcome, without masterfully knowing or understanding.</Abstract> <Access xmlns="http://purl.org/coar/access_right" > </Access> </Publication>