Date of Award
8-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School
Humanities
Committee Chair
Dr. Joshua Bernstein
Committee Chair School
Humanities
Committee Member 2
Dr. Olivia Clare Friedman
Committee Member 2 School
Humanities
Committee Member 3
Dr. Monika Gehlawat
Committee Member 3 School
Humanities
Committee Member 4
Dr. Leah Parker
Committee Member 4 School
Humanities
Committee Member 5
Dr. Michael Aderibigbe
Committee Member 5 School
Humanities
Abstract
Wilczinski Street, is told as a novel-in-stories that follows the residents of the Wilczinki neighborhood, an all-Black community. Of the many families and characters, the reader meets there are the Scotts, where marine veteran and single father Oscar struggles with adapting to life outside the military while raising his young son, Azi, who suffers from Sickle Cell Disease and asthma. A few houses down live the Adelekes, a matriarchal household complete with three generations of women and a neuro atypical daughter with selective mutism. The Milsens, an older couple, are raising boys to men in a world where Black men are perceived as threat, causing the couple to attempt to balance giving their children freedom while ensuring their safety. Other residents include a couple having difficulties conceiving, a single mother raising two children, a family of five working to find harmony in the chaos of living, and other parents that are just doing the best they can in the face of the treats and travails of simply living in the American South while Black.
In American literature, it is common for the reality of African American life to be reduced to a handful of tropes and stereotypes. To help combat this, the field of publications must be widened for Black authors, ensuring that the rich legacy of Black literature is not reduce to a specific and limiting critical paradigm of trauma and oppression. It therefore becomes the task of modern Black literature to combat these images and to offer a glimpse into life while Black without falling into the biases and traps of attempting to reflect Black life.
Wilczinski Street exists to reject the conceit that trauma narratives are all the “Black experience” has to offer and to promote instead the view that Black lives are lives of complexity and depth.
Copyright
Ashura S. Lewis, 2024
Recommended Citation
Lewis, Ashura, "Wilczinski Street: A Novel-in-Stories" (2024). Dissertations. 2286.
https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/2286