This project charts the emergence of a postrace aesthetic in American fiction. It examines how American novels respond to the pressures of what has been called the paradox of the postrace era: that our images and rhetoric portray a nation moving toward racial equality while our statistics actually reveal the opposite. I argue that through the use of features such as futuristic orientation, racially unmarked characters, and the reconfiguration of racial groupings, postrace novels attempt to unsettle our notions of race – a paradoxical endeavor, for attempts to unsettle a category ultimately invoke it again. Capable of interrogating emergent cultural phenomena, postrace novels provide a crucial vantage point from which we can interpret the shifting operations of race in the 21st century.
","abstract_html":"<p>This project charts the emergence of a postrace aesthetic in American fiction. It examines how American novels respond to the pressures of what has been called the paradox of the postrace era: that our images and rhetoric portray a nation moving toward racial equality while our statistics actually reveal the opposite. I argue that through the use of features such as futuristic orientation, racially unmarked characters, and the reconfiguration of racial groupings, postrace novels attempt to unsettle our notions of race – a paradoxical endeavor, for attempts to unsettle a category ultimately invoke it again. Capable of interrogating emergent cultural phenomena, postrace novels provide a crucial vantage point from which we can interpret the shifting operations of race in the 21st century.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Song, Ellen"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Ferraro, Thomas","Vadde, Aarthi"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018","date_published":"2018","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:07:01Z","subjects":["American literature","Asian American studies","African American studies","African American literature","Asian American literature","Contemporary novel","Critical race theory","Postrace fiction"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/10161/17443","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Ferraro, Thomas","Vadde, Aarthi"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Song, Ellen"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2018-09-21T16:07:31Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2020-08-30T08:17:09Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2018"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["American literature","Asian American studies","African American studies","African American literature","Asian American literature","Contemporary novel","Critical race theory","Postrace fiction"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/10161/17443"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This project charts the emergence of a postrace aesthetic in American fiction. It examines how American novels respond to the pressures of what has been called the paradox of the postrace era: that our images and rhetoric portray a nation moving toward racial equality while our statistics actually reveal the opposite. I argue that through the use of features such as futuristic orientation, racially unmarked characters, and the reconfiguration of racial groupings, postrace novels attempt to unsettle our notions of race – a paradoxical endeavor, for attempts to unsettle a category ultimately invoke it again. Capable of interrogating emergent cultural phenomena, postrace novels provide a crucial vantage point from which we can interpret the shifting operations of race in the 21st century.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Novel Speculations: Postrace Fictions in the 21st Century"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Ferraro, Thomas","Vadde, Aarthi"],"dc:creator":["Song, Ellen"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2018-09-21T16:07:31Z"],"dc:date.available":["2020-08-30T08:17:09Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2018"],"dc:description.abstract":["This project charts the emergence of a postrace aesthetic in American fiction. It examines how American novels respond to the pressures of what has been called the paradox of the postrace era: that our images and rhetoric portray a nation moving toward racial equality while our statistics actually reveal the opposite. I argue that through the use of features such as futuristic orientation, racially unmarked characters, and the reconfiguration of racial groupings, postrace novels attempt to unsettle our notions of race – a paradoxical endeavor, for attempts to unsettle a category ultimately invoke it again. Capable of interrogating emergent cultural phenomena, postrace novels provide a crucial vantage point from which we can interpret the shifting operations of race in the 21st century.
"],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://hdl.handle.net/10161/17443"],"dc:subject":["American literature","Asian American studies","African American studies","African American literature","Asian American literature","Contemporary novel","Critical race theory","Postrace fiction"],"dc:title":["Novel Speculations: Postrace Fictions in the 21st Century"],"dc:type":["Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:07:01Z"}