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| author |
Sharon Kimberly Williams
| | title |
Breath | Voice | Fire: A Collection of Creative Non-Fiction Essays
| | abstract |
This compilation of three creative non-fiction essays, Breath | Voice | Fire, will be guided by the works of African-American literary ancestors James Baldwin and Toni Morrison to address 1) the #BlackLivesMatter existential crisis presented by current racial conflict in America and 2) the parallel pandemics and public health crisis presented by COVID-19 and the violence of anti-Black racism. By engaging the voices of Baldwin and Morrison with postmodern writers Fyodor Dostoevsky and Albert Camus, this work will grapple with the constructions of Whiteness, absurdity, redemption, and the existential crisis of Black life in America. Breath | Voice | Fire responds to the necessity of pursuing the cause of fighting for racial justice in 2022 following the recent crises of the dual pandemics of racism and COVID-19. In this work, the pursuit of racial justice entails responding to the racist, institutional, and systematic factors connected to the existential crisis of Blackness in America. The future of American democracy depends upon our ability to bend the universe toward justice and end the race problem in America now. As America deals with its legacy of racism in this hour, the writing in this work will strive to imagine a moral arch that resolves our racial crisis in redemption and reconciliation. This interpretive work imagines Breath | Voice | Fire as what is most needed to bridge America's past to its future so the country can heal.
| | school |
The Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Drew University
| | degree |
D.Litt. (2022)
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| advisor |
Ron Felber
Liana Pielher
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| full text | this dissertation is offline |
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