{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/130180"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/130180","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Erotic elsewhere: pleasure and fugitive evasion in contemporary Black literature","abstract":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","abstract_html":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Williams, Jade Chanel"],"institution":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Jenkins, Candice M.","Jenkins, Candice M","Freeburg, Christopher C","Somerville, Siobhan B","Smalls, Krystal A."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-07-17","date_published":"2025-07-17","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:06Z","subjects":["Black Literature","Sexuality","Pleasure"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2025 Jade Williams"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130180","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Jenkins, Candice M.","Jenkins, Candice M","Freeburg, Christopher C","Somerville, Siobhan B","Smalls, Krystal A."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Williams, Jade Chanel"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-07-17","2025-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Black Literature","Sexuality","Pleasure"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2025 Jade Williams"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130180"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","The student, Jade Williams, accepted the attached license on 2025-07-16 at 16:21.","The student, Jade Williams, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-07-16 at 16:24.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-07-17 at 15:30.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22540 on 2025-10-25 at 15:53:54","This dissertation explores the entanglements of Black sexuality, pleasure, and embodiment under conditions of anti-Black violence, social death, and systemic unfreedom. Focusing on contemporary literature by and about Black femme and queer subjects, it theorizes what I term “pleasure pockets”—ephemeral, somatic eruptions of ecstasy that briefly rupture the dominant order of violence, fungibility, and social negation. Drawing from the intersecting frameworks of Afropessimism, Black Feminist Thought, and Black Queer Studies, this project interrogates the possibilities and limitations of embodied pleasure as a site of disruptive feeling and temporal transcendence. Attending to literary texts as theoretical interventions in their own right, this dissertation reads across genre and generation—from more canonical texts like Corregidora and Jazz to contemporary works such as Luster, Magical Negro, The Prophets, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Nightcrawling, and Slave Play. Across these texts, I argue sexual pleasure and intimacy emerge not as redemptive solutions or liberal counter-narratives to anti-Blackness, but as messy, affectively rich disruptions that reside within and exceed the logics of domination. These moments of pleasure, often unmoored from political legibility or utility, constitute brief yet powerful alternatives to the “sacred timeline” of normative violence. Through close literary analysis and theoretical engagement, this study foregrounds the interior worlds and felt experiences of Black femme and queer subjects who, despite being structurally disavowed, claim moments of ecstasy and fleshly knowing as a mode of world-making. Ultimately, this dissertation contends that the radical potential of Black sexual pleasure lies not in its oppositional stance to violence, but in its capacity to momentarily disorganize time, coherence, and control through embodied sensation."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Erotic elsewhere: pleasure and fugitive evasion in contemporary Black literature"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Jenkins, Candice M.","Jenkins, Candice M","Freeburg, Christopher C","Somerville, Siobhan B","Smalls, Krystal A."],"dc:creator":["Williams, Jade Chanel"],"dc:date":["2025-07-17","2025-08"],"dc:description":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","The student, Jade Williams, accepted the attached license on 2025-07-16 at 16:21.","The student, Jade Williams, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-07-16 at 16:24.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-07-17 at 15:30.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22540 on 2025-10-25 at 15:53:54","This dissertation explores the entanglements of Black sexuality, pleasure, and embodiment under conditions of anti-Black violence, social death, and systemic unfreedom. Focusing on contemporary literature by and about Black femme and queer subjects, it theorizes what I term “pleasure pockets”—ephemeral, somatic eruptions of ecstasy that briefly rupture the dominant order of violence, fungibility, and social negation. Drawing from the intersecting frameworks of Afropessimism, Black Feminist Thought, and Black Queer Studies, this project interrogates the possibilities and limitations of embodied pleasure as a site of disruptive feeling and temporal transcendence. Attending to literary texts as theoretical interventions in their own right, this dissertation reads across genre and generation—from more canonical texts like Corregidora and Jazz to contemporary works such as Luster, Magical Negro, The Prophets, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Nightcrawling, and Slave Play. Across these texts, I argue sexual pleasure and intimacy emerge not as redemptive solutions or liberal counter-narratives to anti-Blackness, but as messy, affectively rich disruptions that reside within and exceed the logics of domination. These moments of pleasure, often unmoored from political legibility or utility, constitute brief yet powerful alternatives to the “sacred timeline” of normative violence. Through close literary analysis and theoretical engagement, this study foregrounds the interior worlds and felt experiences of Black femme and queer subjects who, despite being structurally disavowed, claim moments of ecstasy and fleshly knowing as a mode of world-making. Ultimately, this dissertation contends that the radical potential of Black sexual pleasure lies not in its oppositional stance to violence, but in its capacity to momentarily disorganize time, coherence, and control through embodied sensation."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130180"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2025 Jade Williams"],"dc:subject":["Black Literature","Sexuality","Pleasure"],"dc:title":["Erotic elsewhere: pleasure and fugitive evasion in contemporary Black literature"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:06Z"}