“How can narrative embody life in words?” Tracing Derrida, Love, Beauty, and Afropessimism in Toni Morrison’s Jazz.

In black feminist scholar Saidiya Hartman’s seminal 2008 essay, “Venus in Two Acts”, she raises the pertinent question, “[h]ow can narrative embody life in words” (3). She follows on to question, “[h]ow does one listen to the groans and cries, the undecipherable songs, the cackle of fire in the cane field […] and then assign … Continue reading “How can narrative embody life in words?” Tracing Derrida, Love, Beauty, and Afropessimism in Toni Morrison’s Jazz.