Extravagant Abjection: Blackness, Power, and Sexuality in the African American Literary Imagination

Index

301 Abel, Elizabeth: Female Subjects in Black and White, 22 Aberrations in Black (Ferguson), 15 abjection: anonymous existence and, 89; avoidance as subject, 4–5, 14; black embodiment of, 17–18, 27, 38–39, 59, 97, 104–105, 113, 126, 137, 173, 195–196, 204–205, 224, 259, 266–267; body tension and, 67; “bottom” as, 28; castration anxiety and, 117–118, 170–171, 173–174; concept of nation and, 128; disowning knowledge of, 104; docility and, 54, 100, 143–146; as heroism in disguise, 5–6, 107–109, 119–120, 122, 124, 207; identity and, 150; impossibility of, 125; Kristeva’s views on, 283–284n26, 286n64; learning from, 6; lies and, 7; living within, 66–67; lost wholeness in, 174–175; memory erasure and, 129–131, 135–136, 138, 148; “new” sexual encounter and, 126–129; optimism and, 78; pleasure in, 12, 15, 28, 30–31, 94, 153–171, 177, 195, 202–206, 249–250; political transformation and, 9; pornographic portrayal of, 12, 165, 205–206; power and, 9, 18, 19–20, 29–30, 39, 93–94, 124–125, 170, 222–223, 246, 265, 270; productivity and, 247–248; racialized, 205–210, 212, 230–231, 239–240; sadomasochism and, 106, 154, 155–171, 176, 180, 185–187, 214, 235–236, 242; self-hatred and, 165–166; self-knowledge and, 235, 299n63; sensory impressions of, 101–103, 105; shame, defilement and, 163, 204; Stockton’s study of, 271–272n5; as survival strategy, 264–265; as term, 4, 14–24; transformation through, 217; word “nigger ” and, 218–219 Afrocentrism, 131, 134 Algerian Revolution, 33, 49–50, 59– 60, 65, 69, 73–74, 126–129, 287n4 alienation, 13, 30, 77, 81, 88–89, 93, 117, 177, 192 “All the Things You Could Be by Now . . . “ (Spillers), 22, 273–274n17 “Alternative, The” (Baraka), 194 Alt.Sex.Stories.Gay.Male.Moderated website, 218 American exceptionalism, concept of, 54–55 “American Sexual Reference: Black Male” (Baraka), 180–182 anguish: abjection as, 175; of Johnson ’s character, 97, 103, 118–119, 120; Sartre’s concept of, 26, 51, 76, 79–83, 88, 118, 204, 259 anonymous or amorphous existence: abjection and, 89; colonialism and, 40–41; Merleau-Ponty’s concept of, 25, 85–86, 88, 97, 98, 115, 118, Index 302 Index 204, 222, 245, 246; rejection of ego and, 259, 264; slavery and, 130; tensed muscles and, 76–77, 111; visibility of blackness and, 59–60 Anti-Semite and Jew (Sartre), 291n2 Are We Not Men? (Harper), 19 Arendt, Hannah, 23 Asian Americans, 22 Attendant, The (Julien), 297n15 attraction/repulsion relationship, 17 Augustine, Saint, 270 Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (Johnson), 96–125; biraciality in, 99–101, 118–125; lynching scene, 14, 26–27, 99–104, 106–107, 109, 207; as narrative of failure, 97–98, 107, 113, 119–120, 124, 249; New York club scene in, 108–109; plot of, 98–99; protagonist as everyman in, 18; protagonist as victim, 96–97; protagonist’s identity at end, 122–123; protagonist’s refusal of identification, 104–105, 107, 109–110, 111, 121–122, 133; recognition scene, 99–100, 110, 112; Southern black community in, 198 Baldwin, James, 2, 174–175, 185, 194, 288n12 Baraka, Amiri: “The Alternative,” 194; “American Sexual Reference: Black Male,” 180–182; autobiography of, 273n13, 294n30; Black Arts Movement and, 29, 172–173; “bottom” as used by, 164–165, 167; cartographic metaphors used by, 172–174, 196; depictions of sexual exploitation, 10, 11, 249; di Prima and, 190; The Dutchman, 188; Fanon’s influence on, 33–35, 53, 273n6; Home, 29; homophobia of, 172–174, 176, 206–207; interracial dating rhetoric, 219– 220; “Last Days of the American Empire,” 180; macho discourse of, 179–180, 182–186; marriage to white woman, 183; name change of, 54, 195; nationalism viewed by, 294n21; obscenity prosecution , 179, 190; Sexual Revolution and, 179–180; suspicion of sexual pleasure, 186–187; The System of Dante’s Hell, 14, 29, 179, 187–203; themes of homosexuality and rape in works, 179–180; use of “fag” by, 176; youth of, 176 BDSM, 211–212, 216–220; Delany’s portrayal of, 223–224, 225–255; enslavement and, 218–219, 243–244; master/slave dynamic in, 297n17; political view of, 234–235, 254–255 Beam, Joseph, 245 Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame (Stockton), 16, 17, 271–272n5, 290n46, 292n10, 292n12 Being and Nothingness (Sartre), 79–81 Beloved (Morrison), 129–152; Baby Suggs’s advice to Sethe, 246; bestiality in, 139; chain-gang rape scene, 14, 27–28, 131–135, 139–143...