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  4. Autobiography as political resistance: Anne Moody's Coming of age in Mississippi
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Autobiography as political resistance: Anne Moody's Coming of age in Mississippi

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Description

ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on Anne Moody's use of the autobiographical genre as an extension of her political activism. Noting consistent values and conventions that govern the writing of political activists, this study asserts that Moody's narrative is best situated in the genre of political autobiography--a term coined by Angela Davis. Using Margo V. Perkins' text as a base to define autobiography as activism, this dissertation illustrates the consistent values that characterize Moody's narrative as political autobiography, resistance literature, and ultimately Black Power literature. Building on the works of Joanne Braxton, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, bell hooks, Margo V. Perkins, Assata Shakur, and Johnny Stover, this project demonstrates the use of Moody's autobiography as a collective form of resistance that is reflective of autobiography as activism. To frame its argument, this study theorizes how one comes into revolutionary consciousness, demonstrating the move toward activism as a process. Drawing on Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson's autobiographical theory that the "narrated I" is distinguished from the "narrating I," this study asserts, as Francoise Lionnet suggests, that the "narrating I" is the vehicle to deliver recollections relevant to the autobiographer's agenda. This study emphasizes that the early version of the self Moody creates is consciously linked to her role as a future activist, ultimately demonstrating her political evolution through the emphatic linking of the personal and political. Most importantly, this dissertation demonstrates that Moody's text represents a continuity--an autobiographical bridge--between representations of the Christian nonviolent civil rights movement and the Black Power movement of the late 1960's. This study argues that Moody's autobiography is ideologically poised at the intersection of civil rights and Black Power; therefore, it serves as both a civil rights autobiography and a Black Power autobiography. Coming of Age in Mississippi offers a unique contribution to the genre of Black Power autobiography for the way it facilitates unprecedented insight into the transition from non-violent civil rights ideology to revolutionary consciousness.

Date Created
2011
Contributors
  • Flanagan, Melissa A (Author)
  • Miller, Keith D. (Thesis advisor)
  • Stancliff, Michael (Committee member)
  • Anokye, Duku (Committee member)
  • Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
  • African American Studies
  • American Literature
  • Women's Studies
  • Black power
  • Civil rights movements
  • political autobiography
  • resistance literature
  • African American women political activists--Biography--History and criticism.
  • African American women political activists
  • African Americans--Civil rights--Mississippi.
  • African Americans
  • Autobiography--Political aspects.
  • Autobiography
Resource Type
Text
Genre
Doctoral Dissertation
Academic theses
Extent
v, 156 p
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Reuse Permissions
All Rights Reserved
Primary Member of
ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.14372
Statement of Responsibility
by Melissa A. Flanagan
Description Source
Viewed on October 15, 2013
Level of coding
full
Note
Partial requirement for: Ph. D., Arizona State University, 2011
Note type
thesis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 152-156)
Note type
bibliography
Field of study: English
System Created
  • 2012-08-24 06:10:40
System Modified
  • 2021-08-30 01:49:49
  •     
  • 1 year 5 months ago
Additional Formats
  • OAI Dublin Core
  • MODS XML

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