Toni Morrison: An Ethical Poetics

Index

301 Index Abolition, 52, 53, 116, 265fn13 Abraham, 104; see also sacrifice absence, 46; constitutive, 64; see also vanishing Adorno, Theodor W., 11–12, 239 aesthetic, 11, 212 Africa, 97 Agamben, Giorgio, 28–29, 31, 48, 51 agency, 19–20; delusion of, 19–20; 228 alterity, 212 Althusser, Louis, 138 ambiguity, 152 ambivalent figures, 173–74 American Indians, 47, 54, 55, 204 animality, 143, 208, 215, 279fn17, Rousseau’s distinctions, 208; see also human apocalypse, 19–20, 56, 124, 125, 129, 133, 140, 150, 152; and slavery, 126; and signification, 136; modus operandi, 136, 153–54; theatrics, 137; sleight of hand, 149; amnesia, 153; Columbus, 153–155; hermeneutics, 153; Fifteenth Century Europe, 154–55; and similitude , 160; banality, 169; millenialist dialectic, 200; promises land 202 Bachelard, Gaston, 201, 205, 206 Bacon’s Rebellion, 203–4 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 147, 178 Barthes, Roland, 5, 201, 205 Benito Cerano, 202 Benjamin, Walter, 12, 20, 150; see also language Biblical narratives, 136, 147, 153, 154, 155, 167, 170, 179, 189, 232, 233; Abraham, 104; Isaiah, 154, 274fn46; Pauline references, 159, 233, 235, 238; 276fn6, 320; Revelation, 164–64, 275fn5, 166, 181; Jezebel, 164–65, 167–68, 275fn5; I Kings, 164–65; classical prophets, 166; Eve, 176–77; Song of Solomon, 232–33, 246; I Corinthians, 233; New Testament, 233; Pauline letters, 235 black masculinity, 185–86 black soldiers, 38, 80, 81, 84, 89; See also war Blanchot, Maurice, 7–8 body, 63–64, 72, 129, 134, 170, 271fn15; and desire, 170–71; slave’s body, 210; and inscription, 134, 137; selfinscription , 234; black migrant body, 282fn13 Brown v Board of Education, 83 Butler, Judith, 12 Capitalism, 156; and indifference, 156 carceral network, 272fn24 carnivalesque, 147–48; 273fn36 citation, 100, 124, 147, 166, 216, 217, 219, 226, 229, 230; and grief, 217; Morrison ’s self-citation, 240–41, 250; The Morrison Case, 284fn35 F5639.indb 301 F5639.indb 301 11/26/12 10:06:55 AM 11/26/12 10:06:55 AM 302 Index city, 121, 122; ideal, 234 Civil Rights Movement, 22, 80, 96, 220, 250 colonial curriculum, 15 colonialism, 116, 182, 197, 204 Columbus, 153–55, 159, 219; 274fn46, 274fn47; and translation imperii, 280–81fn7 commandment, 78 communicability, 74 community, 24, 103, 121, 146, 258fn58; and inheritance, 24; divided community , 233; biblical community, 233, 236; Pauline community, 236 confession, 53 Constitution, 78; 82, 83, 84, 87, 95, 99, 117; Lockean influence, 87, 91 contact zone, 189 Continental Congress, 265fn13 Critical Race Theory, 87 death, 46, 54, 72, 177, 195; social death 59; suspended death, 86; masterslave dialectic, 195; Rousseau, 208–9 diaspora, 259–60fn4 difference, 64 discipline, 105; 272fn22 disappearance, 45, 46–47, 65; and naming , 47; see also absence discourse, 7, 8, 21, 28, 64, 160, 163; apocalyptic, 160; colonial 15; Connie’s oneiric, 177; event and discourse, 158; master discourse, 9; memory, 18; oppositional 10; poetic, 162; public, 181; racial 14, 19, 159; slaving, 6, 15; superstitious, 57; witnessing , 31 discredited knowledge, 53 discrimination, 123 Declaration of Independence, 92, 85 Derrida, Jacques, 105, 149, 163, 177, 239, 276fn8, 279fn17 domestic service, 240, 244 double consciousness, 22 Douglass, Frederick, 1, 2–3, 48; anguish about mother, 49–50 dream, 161–62, 196, 205, 209–10, 244; melancholia, 171; condensation and displacement, 209–8 Dred Scott v Sandford, 117 Early America, 155, 161, 187, 187, 198, 219, 239; colonial contests, 202; nascent class consciousness, 203, 207; Virginia Company, 279fn13; English /Spanish contest, 204; tobacco and slavery, 205, 207, 211, 279fn13 education, 80, 100, 175, 234 Emancipation, 145 Enlightenment, 11, 119, 206, 212 enclosure, 10, 45 epigraph, 217, 218, 228–29, 231, 232, 236, 238, 239; ironized, 232; types, 280fn2; destabilized, 217; and canon, 217; interpretative invitation, 218; as verification, 219; reweighting original , 228–29; abstracted language, 236; temporality of, 239 epitaph, 236 eschatology, 149 etiological shifts, 29 eugenics, 36–37, 133, 249 event, 158 excess, 33–34, 47, 68, 128, 161, 187, 211 exclamation, 74 father, 44, 45; and sons, 42; and inheritance , 45; disappearance of, 46, 47, 90, 91, 101; unacknowledged, 54; omnipresent, 76, 264fn1; patronyms, 231–32 Fanon, Franz, 168 fiction, 40; obligated testimony, 27 Fifth Monarchists, 278fn9 fire, 119 forgetting, 46–56, 75, 101, 120, 131, 152, 153, 200; and apocalypse, 153 F5639.indb 302 F5639.indb 302 11/26/12 10:06:55 AM 11/26/12 10:06:55 AM Index 303 Foucault, Michel, 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 22, 25, 106, 109, 117...