An Archeology of Silenced Voices: Spectrality in Contemporary African American Fiction

Abstract

Since the so-called “spectral turn” of the 1990s, the ghost was placed at the forefront of critical debates and artistic manifestations. Adopting the field of spectrality studies, this dissertation seeks to account for the ubiquity of the ghost in contemporary African American fiction. This research is premised on the fact that, in the corpus selected, two complementary dimensions of spectrality, with their concomitant functions, can be ascertained. I argue that, in Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983) and Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day (1988) the Africanist dimension of spectrality is foregrounded while the psycho-social one occupies a secondary place.