Author ORCID Identifier
Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Type
PhD
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
English
Committee Chair
Stephanie Foote
Committee Co-Chair
Erin Brock Carlson
Committee Member
Katy Ryan
Committee Member
Lynne Stahl
Abstract
My dissertation, “Intersectional Embodiment: An Exploration of Women’s Bodily Experiences in Contemporary American Literature,” examines contemporary American novels written by women of color in order to illuminate how women of color protagonists realize, protect, and embrace their bodies as a source of power in a deeply oppressive society. Specifically, I analyze Kindred (1979) and the Parable novels (1993, 1998) by Octavia Butler, Displacement (2019), a graphic novel by Kiku Hughes, and Severance (2018) by Ling Ma. In these novels, women protagonists must account for their bodies to understand their identity, combat oppressive bodily control, and, above all, survive. Both neo-historical novels and climate fiction show how the history of the present and the future is being [re]written on the bodies of women of color. These novels rewrite the past and envision different futures, underscoring women’s struggles and their resistance to a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. These authors confront politically divisive and culturally urgent matters: whether their characters are fleeing to safety in a climate-affected world or are actively working to free themselves from enslavement, the narrative structure of each novel reflects a specific intersectional embodied experience, one that is both racialized and gendered. Ultimately, my research highlights individual and collective histories, emphasizing that embodiment, when implicated in stories steeped in trauma, becomes formed through the racialized and gendered aspects of societal subjugation via social hierarchies. In these works, the bodies of women are infused with experience, encapsulating conglomerations of histories and harboring sites of punishment—and yet, these women fight, resist, and survive as a means to sustain autonomy and protect others.
Recommended Citation
Wertz, Olivia Marie, "Intersectional Embodiment: An Exploration of Women's Bodily Experiences in Contemporary American Literature" (2025). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 12871.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/12871