‘Go There to Know There’

What sparked your interest in the depiction of slavery and trauma in contemporary culture?

This project has its roots in a broader exploration of the representations of racial traumas—social confrontations that also reflect deep personal anxiety about place, status, and hierarchy—in American literature. In its earliest stages, its focus was not exclusively on the institution of slavery but on interpersonal conflicts, either interracial or intra-racial, where the black subject was presented as a distraction or as a symbol to indicate the depth of the conflict. There’s a famous scene in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom where Thomas Sutpen the protagonist, a self-made plantation master, recalls being turned away from the front door of a fancy plantation as a child. The black house slave who rebuffs him marks for Sutpen this moment of denial and humiliation. Sutpen’s desire for success is fueled by the desire to overcome any situation that could  place him in a position to be bossed around by a black person. My interests shifted from pursuing a broader range of such social traumas and stigmas to tracing the persistent recurrence of slavery as an issue of central importance in African American literature. I found that, like many other scholars, American slavery was, and remains, an important marker for African American literature, culture, and identity formation. My hope was to trace that in ways and in places that hadn’t been done before.

What is unique about speculative fiction that allows an alternative depiction of slavery that is not represented in traditional theories?

Speculative fiction—a genre that includes horror, gothic, fantasy and science fiction—presents a unique opportunity to consider the representation of American slavery in that the generic codes and foundations of this literature differ significantly from more traditional literary forms. By definition, speculative fiction alters the terrain of what one can or should expect in literary fiction. Writers of speculative fiction are less limited by the demands of, say, realism and as such can feel freer to craft situations and scenes that would not occur in other forms. Though there are certainly elements of the speculative and the spectacular in “traditional” literary forms, in speculative fiction there is more room for a certain kind of play and experimentation. Ghosts, bio-technological advances, vampires, cybernetics, breaks in the space-time continuum, and reincarnation permeate this literature; they are elements readily accepted (and expected) in this genre. The effect of this mode of literature on theorizing and crafting depictions of slavery is to allow writers to create access points to the slave past for a person living in the novel’s present. The historical novel has long offered the past as a total complete view; however in novels like Kindred by Octavia Butler or Stigmata by Phyllis Alicia Perry, these writers craft situations that seek to collapse the distance between the past and the present, to force a modern-day protagonist to confront and reconcile with the personal responsibility to, or awareness of, the slave past. It’s curious to note here that Octavia Butler never considered Kindred to be “science fiction” because, she said, it didn’t have any science in it. When asked about the time travel in the novel [she noted that there was no time machine], she said that time travel was simply a device to get the protagonist from 1976 California to 19^th century Maryland. She saw the book as a “fantasy,” a “grim fantasy.” Part of that fantasy, I suggest, is to imagine what would happen to a person from “our time” were he or she to be placed in the antebellum South.

In your introduction you define bodily epistemology.  How does this concept critique the current theories of trauma and slavery?

Bodily epistemology suggests a process as revealed in the books, films, and re-enactments I’ve studied that aims to engage the slave past in a way that departs from learning about it through historical or literary studies. The process in books like Kindred or Stigmata suggests that a more primary or first-hand experience is also an important and complementary component of understanding the slave past. This is the crucial reason, I believe, that the novels and films invoke a speculative fiction paradigm: time travel and reincarnation are not ideas readily accepted as real or probable in our daily experience. But in the genre of speculative fiction or fantasy fiction where these notions can cohabit with other similarly nontraditional concepts, characters, and plot devices, it begins to make sense that a contemporary character—contrary to normal reasoning—could travel to the slave past or interact with a slave ancestor. That collapse of the distinction between the past and present serves a therapeutic function in these works, a way to address an amnesia about the slave past through the improbable experience of living through parts of it. In this way, the stories enact a literal yet speculative form of the therapeutic concept of “working through.”

In your book you discuss the trend in the works you examine to want to ‘Go there to Know there,’ to seek to experience slavery, as if first hand, whether through reenactments or film.  Can such reenactments provide a better understanding of the trauma missed in traditional historical texts? 

I see the impulse in the representations of “go there to know there” less as a critique of historical or literary texts and more of a supplement or complement to those forms of knowledge. In the novels I studied, there was a clear sense that books were the only way to find information about the slave past. That’s pretty clear, I think, in the fact that the works themselves are books. Many of the novels reflect the growing number of narratives, histories, fiction, and other textual work about slavery. It is not as if the trauma is “missed” in these textual representations, but I believe these writers are aiming to create a sense of empathy for that past; they model that empathic strategy by placing a character—again using a speculative means—in that past. Then that character is shown to have a more intimate knowledge of that experience than they could gain by reading alone. This also creates a space in the novel for the reader to question modern-day assumptions and comforts and consider how they might or might not be reconciled. In two of the novels, books form the basis for the experience; giving rudimentary facts and details that locate the character in their newly acquired contexts. Books also form the basis for re-enactment since re-enactors research slave’s narratives, histories, and other forms of textual and archival data to craft their own representations. 

How will Embodying American Slavery in Contemporary Culture add to the conversations about slavery, its trauma and the complications of its remembrance?

I believe that the book contributes several key elements to this conversation. The concept of bodily epistemology offers a reading practice as a way to explain this particular go-there-to-know-there impulse to commemorate and recognize the lived experience of American slavery. It also reflects an engaging and popular performance strategy for historical and ritual re-enactments of slavery. There was not much scholarship that crossed the bridge between literary representations of this specific type of contemporary literature and films on the one hand and museum installations and slavery re-enactments on the other. So that’s been another solid contribution. I also enjoyed writing about comedian Dave Chapelle and Chapelle’s Show; his re-enactments or specialized versions of American slavery in the Roots bloopers episode, the Time Haters, and the “Reparations” sketch. The notion of empathy is another key addition to the conversation; sometimes slavery re-enactors described the process of their work as walking in the shoes of the ancestors (another phrase used was “walking in the skin of an ancestor”). Usually that phrase—you can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes—is meant to suggest empathy, the strategy of attempting to understand someone by putting yourself in their position. But this position also has risks, especially for slavery. Scholars have shown that attempts at such empathy run the risk of erasing the person with whom one intends to connect. So the idea of empathy—its benefits and risks—as well as the notion of re-enactment as a form historical knowledge that approximates the conditions and experiences without aiming for substitution or displacement are other considerations to keep in mind. 

With your book, how do you hope to change the way that your readers evaluate contemporary TV shows, films, and literature that depicts the trauma of slavery?

I would hope that the book offers new and supplemental strategies for reading these representations. That one could look at a novel or a film and consider the role empathy or re-enactment might play as a commemorative strategy.    

Were there any unforeseen difficulties that you encountered while writing your first book?

Not really. The University of Virginia was very supportive. I also received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, which was a big help. Colleagues in the English department and at The Carter G. Woodson Institute were very generous. In terms of constructing the book, the biggest challenge was to narrow down, focus, and prioritize the range of concerns—novels, film, museum sites, historical and ritual re-enactments. At times, the travel to research sites was a challenge but it was also very invigorating to talk with people about the re-enacting and the ways they viewed their work.  

What was most rewarding about writing Embodying American Slavery in Contemporary Culture?

The ability to discuss a range of materials was very rewarding. I was able to trace the go-there-to-know-there impulse in novels and films, quilting aesthetics, middle passage museum installation, and re-enactment performances. I find it powerful that individuals have taken all these different paths toward the broader goal of remembering the experience of American slavery. 

This interview was conducted by Ashley Lewis, a third year student from Petersburg, Va. Ashley is double-majoring in English and African American and African Studies and minoring in Philosophy. She plans to attend law school after graduation. 

Lisa Woolfork is an associate professor in the Department of English, where she teaches  courses in African American Literature and Culture. She is currently working on a project that considers the circulation of black identity and cultural forms in contemporary Black literature and digital media.