{"id":59992,"date":"2020-07-19T03:50:13","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T03:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59992"},"modified":"2020-07-19T03:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T03:53:52","slug":"is-there-a-self-in-this-text-satire-passing-and-life-in-danzy-sennas-caucasia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59992","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIs There a Self in This Text? Satire, Passing, and Life in Danzy Senna\u2019s Caucasia\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00111619.2020.1784083\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>\u201cIs There a Self in This Text? Satire, Passing, and Life in Danzy Senna\u2019s <\/strong><\/em><strong>Caucasia<\/strong><em><strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/toc\/vcrt20\/current\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction<\/a><br \/>\nPublished online 2020-06-25<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00111619.2020.1784083\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">10.1080\/00111619.2020.1784083<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Myers Enlow<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>University of Memphis , Memphis, Tennessee<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00111619.2020.1784083\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/na101\/home\/literatum\/publisher\/tandf\/journals\/covergifs\/vcrt20\/cover.jpg\" width=\"100\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this paper, I argue that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Danzy_Senna\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Danzy Senna\u2019s<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=8347\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Caucasia<\/em><\/a> is a satirical <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">passing<\/a> narrative that exposes the tragedy of traditional passing novels as archaic for relying on racial binaries and perpetuating white desirability. I draw on the existing scholarship surrounding satire and traditional passing narratives and apply it to Senna\u2019s work to analyze the ways this novel differs from traditional, early 20th-century passing narratives to comment on the absurdity of white desirability and the racial binary through the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Dream\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Dream<\/a>. Specifically, I look at <em>Caucasia<\/em> as a location in which the main characters \u2013 biracial Birdie and Cole Lee; their white mother, Sandy; and their black father, Deck \u2013 must find a way to live. The all-white space the characters are forced to inhabit informs their racial identities and desires and leads to a double consciousness within the narrator, Birdie. Ultimately, Senna\u2019s satire illuminates the tragic passing narrative as complicit in upholding and reinforcing assumptions of a binary world. Additionally, Senna shows the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Double_consciousness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">double consciousness<\/a> African Americans and biracial individuals embody because of America\u2019s fixation on the white, American Dream that manifests itself as life in <em>Caucasia<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Read or purchase the article <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00111619.2020.1784083\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this paper, I argue that Danzy Senna\u2019s &#8220;Caucasia &#8220;is a satirical passing narrative that exposes the tragedy of traditional passing novels as archaic for relying on racial binaries and perpetuating white desirability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[27871,1340,31047],"class_list":["post-59992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-critique-studies-in-contemporary-fiction","tag-danzy-senna","tag-myers-enlow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59992"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59998,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59992\/revisions\/59998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}