%0 Journal Article
%T ¡°A Lynching in Blackface¡±: The Representation of History and Fantasies of Black Male Violence in John E. Wideman¡¯s The Lynchers
%A Dexl
%A Carmen
%J COPAS : Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies
%D 2010
%I University of Regensburg
%X John Edgar Wideman¡¯s novel The Lynchers (1973) dramatizes African American plans to lynch a white policeman and thus promote the constitution of a black nation. Drawing on Linda Hutcheon¡¯s intertextual conception of parody as elaborated in A Theory of Parody (1985), this article examines the inversion of the lynching narrative at the core of The Lynchers as a ¡°repetition with a critical difference¡± (32). It argues that the novel¡¯s adoption of parody serves three major functions: First, it exposes the specific workings of lynching. Second, it debunks central ingredients of the lynching mythology and third, it expresses a critical position towards the premises and implications of gendered black nationalism.
%U http://copas.uni-regensburg.de/article/view/126/150