"Many and strange experiences of shadow and sunshine": Ideological violence, subjectivity, and the impossibility of redemption in Frederick Douglass' lifelong resistance to white supremacy, an American paradox rewritten by himself

This dissertation sets out to recover Frederick Douglass as a militant by radically redefining the terms of his militancy. Beginning with the recognition that Douglass' militancy emerges from his violent experiences with enslavement - not his exposure to other militants, i.e. John Brown - this dissertation identifies strategies of signifying and indirection in Douglass' rhetorical performance throughout his public career as speaker, journalist, author, editor, and activist that register not only his lifelong resistance to white supremacy but also his salient critique of Christianity, liberal individualism, plantation paternalism, and the patriarchal conventions of the remarkably oppressive society that they legitimate. Often maligned by readers for espousing the core values of the dominant ideologies of his day, Douglass does nothing of the sort; rather, his critique of these pernicious ideological pillars of nineteenth-century American life resonates throughout his life's work. Through close readings focused primarily on Douglass' autobiographical texts, this dissertation recognizes the centrality of violence and violent self-assertion to Douglass' rhetorical purpose; however, because violence is the language of patriarchy and white supremacy, Douglass' ensnares his former captors in a narrative of condemnation and redemption that is, itself, the ultimate form of retribution, an exercise of pen and voice that is well to keep in mind as we consider questions of Douglass' militancy in the synthesis of our own strategies of resistance

Shadows Present, Fore-shadowing Deeper Shadows to Come: Prophecy, Power, and Progress in Herman Melvilles Benito Cereno

Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno" subverts nineteenth-century racist ideology by attributing a capacity for agency and intellect to Babo and the slaves that the prevalent white-supremacist doctrine denies them. In the narrative, Captain Delano fails to recognize that the slaves have taken over the San Dominick because his fundamentally racist world-view leads him to assume that slaves are incapable of overthrowing their masters. However, Delano's willful ignorance, born out of greed and ambition, serves as justification for entering into a subtle and complex power struggle with Babo and Cereno for control of the San Dominick. Considered through a Kantian lens, Delano's rise to power demonstrates a dialectic pattern in the narrative, establishing "Benito Cereno" as a brief chapter in the never-ending progression of history, allowing the reader a moment to consider where society has been, where it is, and where it might be headed.English Departmen