Abstract
After the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, Afropessimist theories have gained academic and cultural traction. Afropessimism pushes back against Humanist universalism to contend that the Black person is denied access to full status of “human” subjectivity; instead, Afropessimism offers a conception of the social reality of the world as structured upon Black social death. In this paper, I take up what Frank B. Wilderson III, a prominent Afropessimist theorist, describes as “burn[ing] the ship … from the inside out,” exploring how an anamorphic experience for a Black subject could lead to a dissolution of this social death and a radical restructuring of the world. I apply Wilderson’s conception of Afropessimism, as outlined in his memoir of the same name, to J.M.W. Turner’s 1840 painting Slave Ship, examining this painting as an example of Lacanian anamorphosis. I outline how the undercurrent of racist violence within the painting, revealed only as a viewer steps in closer to examine the murky waters of the painting’s depths, functions as “the abyss” for both nonblack and Black viewers. Although Wilderson claims that his theory offers no solutions or concrete praxis, I bear down on the hopeful thread of “burning” which weaves through the second half of his memoir, arguing that for the Black viewer of Slave Ship, an encounter with this “abyss” of Black suffering can lead to a transformative shattering of subjectivity—interrogating what it means to be “human” altogether.
Presenters
Emily BecklerStudent, Master of Arts in English literature , Boston College, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Critical Theory, Afropessimism, Psychoanalysis, Visual Art, Contemporary Theory and Philosophy
