| dc.description.abstract | Instances of unprecedented visual representation, like the recent nomination of Vice-President Kamala Harris and the development and airing of shows like Fresh Off the Boat (2015-2020), have been marshaled as evidence of systemic change even as Native Americans continue to be killed in police encounters at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group; rates of anti-Asian assaults continue to increase due to false connections between China and COVID-19; and African Americans continue to be unjustifiably murdered by police officers. Excavating Representations takes the explication and investigation of this tension, between visual representation and social progress, as a point of departure to explore a racialized imaginary that relies upon stereotypes to primarily establish relationships between bodies in the quotidian, and thereafter, negotiate difference. How is the imagination constantly shaped and maligned by anti-black violence? If the on-going project of nation-making is constructed within representation and representation depends upon legibility, how do “progressive” instances of visual representation undergird systems of white supremacy? My dissertation returns to a reclamation of the ancestors to restore the connections lost within a racialized society. | |
