An analysis of how race is represented in Colson Whitehead's first six novels, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's sociology.

What does it mean to write African American literature after the end of legalized segregation? In this study of Colson Whitehead's first six novels, Marlon Lieber argues that this question has permeated the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's writing since his 1999 debut The Intuitionist. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's relational sociology and Marxist critical theory, Lieber shows that Whitehead's oeuvre articulates the tension between the persistent presence of racism and transformations in the United States' class structure, which reveals new modes of abjection. At the same time, Whitehead imagines forms of writing that strive to transcend the histories of domination objectified in social structures and embodied in the form of habitus.

»Liebers monograph enriches the growing scholarship on Colson Whiteheadwhile shedding light on hitherto less explored issues in his works, thus providingexciting new insights on how contemporary authors engage with the categories ofclass and race.«

Autorentext
Marlon Lieber works as Assistant Professor of North American literature and culture at the Institute of English and American Studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, where he received his PhD in 2018.