In the early 1900s Ernest J. Bellocq photographed anonymous, mostly mixed-race prostitutes in the legalized vice district of Storyville in New Orleans. In Bellocqs Ophelia, Natasha Trethewey creates a narrative that seeks to privilege both the material objectsErnest Bellocqs Storyville photographsand one of his historically anonymous subjects, whom Trethewey names Ophelia. Trethewey begins her recuperation of the silent, anonymous prostitute by exercising her power as author to name the subject, and in naming her, Trethewey situates her within a prestigious, but literary history. In this paper, I suggest that Tretheweys interrogation of the art object, either as subject and/or object, reveals that complex negotiations between morality and subjectivity are necessary endeavors in unpacking the history and role of representational in the shaping of how black bodies, specifically southern black bodies are read.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-06302009-104447 |
| Date | 17 July 2009 |
| Creators | Ross, Donika DeShawn |
| Contributors | Professor Kathryn Schwarz, Professor Michael Kreylin |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu//available/etd-06302009-104447/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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