scholarly journals Imploding the Racialized and Patriarchal Beauty Myth through the Critical Lens of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-158
Author(s):  
Lilijana Burcar
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Bluest Eye ◽  
Social Positioning ◽  
Contextual Understanding ◽  
Beauty Myth ◽  
Beauty Norms

This contribution investigates and lays bare the ideological workings of racialized beauty myth as presented in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye by bringing together feminist theory and postcolonial theory of race. It demonstrates that racialized beauty norms are informed by both the constructs of gender and race, and that they serve as a tool of social positioning and social control in Western capitalist patriarchies. This kind of contextual understanding, which Morrison’s The Bluest Eye helps to foster on a number of structurally interlocked levels, is also of crucial importance for the understanding of the way beauty myth operates today in the context of globally exported Western beauty industry. Its basic tenets remain firmly rooted in the construction and perpetuation of racialized and gendered otherness, which is why The Bluest Eye remains an eye-opener and therefore a novel of lasting value for readers in general and, as this contribution demonstrates, for students of English literature in particular.

Masterly Maxims

PMLA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-497
Author(s):  
Mieke Bal
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Deep Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Background ◽  
Philosophical Texts ◽  
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Unlike most others teaching (English) literature, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is intimately knowledgeable about philosophy, especially German. Her deep knowledge of Kant, Marx, and Gramsci is a red thread running through her many books. And, given her interest in what we call less and less happily “postcolonial” theory (the hesitation coming from an awareness of the problematic meaning of the prefix post-), her discussions of such canonical and inexhaustible philosophical texts never lose sight of the sociopolitical implications of the ideas gleaned from the encounter. Thus, she brings a philosophical tradition to bear on contemporary social issues of a keen actuality. This solid philosophical background does not make her texts always easy to read for literary and other cultural scholars eager to get ideas—preferably quickly—about “how to do” postcolonial literary studies. Spivak's work is as challenging to read, understand, and absorb as it is important in content.

scholarly journals White Oppression and Black Resistance in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
MHD Noor Al-Abbood
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Music ◽  
The Novel ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
Bluest Eye ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Dick And Jane ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Beauty Myth

Many critical interpretations of Morrison’s The Bluest Eye are driven by the belief that the novel pessimistically depicts an African American community so helplessly captivated by an insidious white aesthetic ideology that it is incapable of resistance, self-regeneration, or change. Pointing out the flawed premises of these readings, this article argues that the novel presents rather an effective example of resistance to the dominant white ideology thematically and formally. Morrison’s deconstructive rewriting of the “Dick and Jane” primer effectively subverts the terms of the white oppressive discourse and demolishes its ideological foundations, thus paving the way for African American self-affirmation. This is reflected in Claudia’s increasing awareness of, and mounting rebellion against, the destructive white aesthetic. Her rejection of the white beauty myth, demonstrated by her confused early childhood’s destruction of white baby dolls, culminates in a more sophisticated perception of the operation of this myth and in a radical retrieval and re-affirmation of the black beauty and worth which the white beauty myth denies in order to legitimate itself and establish its hegemony. The article argues that the radical resistance to the dehumanizing white ideology Claudia develops is, like Morrison’s formal deconstructive project, quite indebted to African American music and, more crucially, to the rich heritage behind it. The article concludes by emphasizing that in the world depicted in The Bluest Eye possibilities of resistance and chances of survival are vitally dependent on the strength of one’s connection to African American culture and heritage, as the story of Claudia’s survival proves.

Sara Ahmed’s Critical Phenomenology of Communication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Stonecipher
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Feminist Politics ◽  
Real People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Phenomenology ◽  
The Media

Sara Ahmed is a feminist philosopher specializing in how the cultural politics of language use and discourse mediate social and embodied encounters with difference. She has published field-shaping contributions to queer and feminist theory, critical race and postcolonial theory, affect and emotion studies, and phenomenology. Since the publication of Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism in 1998, her work has epitomized the value of contemporary feminist cultural studies to speak to and against the masculinist traditions of continental philosophy. Unequivocally inserting feminist politics into the rarified air of academic theory, it crosses the sexist boundary which corrals feminist thought into the category of “studies” while opposing it to male-authored philosophy—the latter automatically authorized to speak on the social and material “Real.” In doing so, her work sits squarely within discourse-analytical traditions that seek to expose how various epistemic scenes – activism, the media, and academia, to name a few -- sediment false authority on such issues as happiness, utility, and the good. Moreover, in contesting New Materialism’s search for some monist “matter” beneath experience, she traces how those linguistic moves impose insidiously singular concepts of what social “reality” is, and how it unfolds, for real people. As a field, communication studies concerns itself centrally with matters of social influence, scale, and power, such as the electoral effects of political speech, or the ability of a message to morph as it reaches new audiences. Turning a critical eye upon the (re)production of cultural norms and social structure through interpersonal and institutional encounters, Ahmed’s oeuvre explores the discursive logics and speech acts that sediment or transform the social meanings of race, gender, and other differences.

scholarly journals XENOPHOBIA AND CITIZENSHIP IN MEG VANDERMERWE’S ZEBRA CROSSING

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 756-764
Author(s):  
Mustafa Mohammed Abdullah ◽  
Hardev Kaur ◽  
Ida Baizura Bt Bahar ◽  
Manimangai Mani
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Political System ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
English Literature ◽  
The State ◽  
The South ◽  
The Past ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Worldwide Phenomenon

Purpose of the study: In the past two decades several researchers have explored the concern of xenophobia in South African fiction. Studies sought to determine the reasons behind the prevalence of xenophobic violence in South Africa. Previous research on xenophobia claims that xenophobic violence is prevalent in the state is, in fact, due to economic and social reasons only. Yet, this article aims to correct the misconception of the Rainbow Nation that South Africa was supposed to have been achieved after 1994. Methodology: The text Zebra Crossing (2013) by the South African novelist Meg Vandermerwe is under the focus. The concept of Michael Neocosmos of Citizenship from the postcolonial theory is applied to the selected text. A close reading of the text and qualitative research is the method of my analysis. The article will focus on the acts of violence reflected in the text in an attempt to find the reasons behind such acts. Neocosmos' valid conceptualization about the outbreaks of xenophobia in South Africa in the post-apartheid is applied to the selected text. Main Findings: the article will conclude that the notion of the rainbow nation in South Africa is no more than a dream due to the outbreaks of xenophobia and the ongoing violence against foreigners. It will also prove that the continuous xenophobic violence in South Africa is not because of social or economic reasons only yet, there is a political discourse that engenders and triggers the natives to be more xenophobic. Thus, the state politics of exclusion, indigeneity, and citizenship are the stimuli for citizens to be more aggressive and violent against foreigners. Applications of this study: the study will add new insight to the domain of English literature generally and the South African literature specifically. The study will be valuable in immigration literature as it deals with the plights of migrants in South Africa and their suffering from xenophobic violence. The study is located in the postcolonial approach. Novelty/Originality of this study: the study offers new insight towards xenophobia in South Africa. The concept applied in the study has not been explored so far in the selected text. Previous research claimed that xenophobia in South Africa is due to economic and social reasons but did not focus on the legacies of postcolonialism nor the new political system. The study is original and new as it discusses an ongoing and worldwide phenomenon utilizing a new concept.  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document