Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

English

Committee Chair

Stephanie Foote

Committee Co-Chair

Rose Casey

Committee Member

Cari Carpenter

Committee Member

Kirstin Squint

Abstract

I examine the narratives of the South that have been historically overlooked, ignored, or hidden in order to establish a dominant narrative of the region. The narratives examined here are by southern Black and Indigenous authors who restore lost knowledge and offer histories that help complete the South culturally and ecologically. The conceptual methodology develops from LeAnne Howe’s tribalography which explains that Indigenous people create stories and histories that transform the space around them and offer an understanding of the world around us. Another methodology used is Anthony Wilson’s ecocritical swamp studies; each chapter analyzes a narrative centered around a swamp, a low-lying area, or a hurricane. I also use the concept of ecotones or spaces of transition, necessary spaces of invisible work as each author supplies a space created by knowledge, history, and story to do the necessary work of leading their readers through the middle of a dominant narrative to the unburied truth. The selected texts offer perspectives of a violent past and how this violence affected the ecology of their home as well as how the natural world was seen and cared for. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is an example used in one chapter that illuminates what has been lost due to colonization and white supremacy. I examine Black and Indigenous authors as these two people groups have suffered the most under colonization in the South and have witnessed the most violence. Their voices offer the South a way to confront its past and renew both land and human relations with access to hidden stories and forgotten knowledge.

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