"I am Not That": The Logic of Lynching and the Performativity of Americanizable Alienness in American Identity Constructions

• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: 부경숙(Kyung Sook Boo)
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제47집 3호, 147~174쪽, 전체 28쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2015.12.31

영문 초록

This essay examines popular culture texts ranging from films like Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer (1927) and Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) to Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters (2007), Tom McCarthy's The Visitor (2008), and Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013), to Walter Hill's 2006 miniseries, Broken Trail, and songs or photographs, as well as recent legislation to show how the logic of lynching is based on a particular American construction of identity as a black-white binary of "I am not that" black body hanging in a tree, tortured, mutilated, and murdered. This logic of lynching polices who is allowed to belong and enjoy the full rights of citizenship and protection of the nation-state of the U.S.A., but where the line between "that" and "I am not that" lies continues to shift historically. This essay argues that it is through learning and deploying the logic and strategies of lynching that certain immigrant groups originally not regarded as white cross over from undesirable and unAmericanizable alienness to Americanizable alienness, and at times, even whiteness, or, in other words, transition from "that" to "not that" through the performativity of Americanizable alienness, to emerge as full citizens.

목차

Ⅰ. Becoming American by Declaring "I am Not That"

Ⅱ. The Logic of Lynching

Ⅲ. The Performativity of Americanizable Alienness

Ⅳ. "I am Not That" Revised in Post-9/11 America

Works Cited

Abstract

키워드

Lynching performativity Americanizable alienness citizenship identity construction