Identifier

etd-04112005-175540

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This study develops the Black Masculine Paradigm (BMP), a construct used to trace historically specific components that inform black masculinity and explores the physical and psychological defensive strategies employed by black men in Richard Wright's Black Boy, Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promisedland, Nathan McCall's Make Me Wanna Holler, and James Earl Hardy's B-Boy Blues. Specifically, this project offers that power, money, and sex(uality) are located at the core of the BMP, and these social objectives are negotiated through politicization, prescribed masculinity, and heterosexuality. This project reads the politicization of the black male body through its presence in literature and film. Adding to work included by literary and cultural studies scholars, the study has social and psychological dimensions that suggest an alternate form of black masculinity as well. The study reveals that these strategies affect the black males' economic, social and physical movement, and creates a corrupt national narrative that is informed and disrupted by racism.

Date

2005

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

John Lowe

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.337

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