The dissertation is a late 20th century/contemporary project. I use the myth (read: common notions/imaganings) of California and California-invested/centered/curious novels to delineate the evolution of blackness at the end of last century. I'm (still/currently) working on a chapter anchored by Paul Beatty's
The White Boy Shuffle, a satiric novel about a Los Angeles, CA "street" poet and basketball star named Gunnar Kaufman. (Yes, Gunnar as in Myrdal and Kaufman as in Bob.) On one hand, I'm glad to do the work. The last chapter was on Danzy Senna and multiraciality, and I was just tired of the mixed-race discourse. It was frustrating for someone as committed to blackness--as an identity, as a symbol of working to (potentially) undermine white supremacy, capitalism, etc.--as I am to have to become a mini-expert an implicitly anti-black, anxiety laden position.
