本研究計畫乃本人NSC-97 與NSC-99 計畫「膚色與性別越界」之延伸研究，主軸環繞在哈林文藝復興時期非裔美國女性作品中，混血女性角色以及種族越界者(racial passers) 如何於種/國族身分認定之過程，質疑、鬆動、與跨越由白種男人所建構之有形及無形的性別和種族界線。本研究將分析妮娜拉姍(Nella Larsen)、傑西佛塞(Jessie Fauset)、及其非裔女性混血小說人物，探討1920s-1930s 年代新黑人運動(New Negro Movement)以何種方式提供管道與舞台予女性作家書寫種族混雜論述、中產階級白種女人所發起之新女性運動又以何種方式影響非裔女性對於女/性的定義、以及拉姍和佛塞是否能夠藉由改造黑人新女性的角色，從而參與由德布瓦(Du Bois)所發起之全美性的非裔種族提昇運動(racial uplift movement)。另一方面，藉由討論女性種族越界者模擬白女的經驗，本計畫將嘗試解讀種族混雜對美國白人世界所造成的恐慌，以及夾縫在黑白膚色、真女性與新女性形象(TrueWomandhood and NewWomanhood) 之間的混血女子，如何從種族越界的過程之中，發掘力量和動能重寫傳統混血論述(narratives of the “tragic mulatto”)，將混血女性從可悲的受害者轉化為可敬的領導者(Talented Tenth)，進而打破種族框架和白(男)人對於黑女濫性的迷思。本研究之理論骨架擬從德布瓦的種族學為主、巴特勒的身體理論為輔，期待發掘在種族越界者背後，是否隱藏分裂性或選擇性之種族認同，以及在扮演白女的過程中，越界者是否企圖顛覆威權的性別與種族控訴。本研究成果預期可提供相關學者一個嶄新的角度來發掘與研究哈林文藝復興時期的越界論述和新黑女性文學，並可望引發學界對於二十世紀初期非裔女性書寫的研究興趣。
An extension of my previous projects on the non/white NewWoman in the American Progressive Era, this project proposes to investigate the roles and images of the African American women and their racial-sexual identity formation in the Harlem Renaissance. This study will discuss selected fictional works by Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset, with concentration devoted to the ways their female hybrid characters transgress the sexual norms and racial line through manipulating, exploiting, and performing the in/visibility of the racial/sexual “un-intelligent” abject bodies. Based on W. E. B. Du Bois’ theory of the double consciousness and Judith Butler’s performativity, the project is intended both as an analysis on how the two women writers responded to the NewWoman rhetoric in the U.S. and as an investigation into the narrative strategies with which earlyAfro-American women writers imagined and mapped the representative images of the New Negro womanhood. What I also would like to examine is on what level Larsen’s and Fauset’s female mulatta figures are Hegelian slaves wearing the masters’ masks, caught in the liminal realm of “neither/nor,” and in what way the hybrid characters secure their national identities and find strength from the zone of “both/and” to oppose myths about black biological deficiencies and cultural inferiority. Secondly, this study aims to discuss the channel through which the two writers question racial determinism and challenge the racial norms that secure white privilege and dominance. The ultimate purpose is to scrutinize the ways the two writers transform the narratives of the “tragic mulatto” into a literary platform from which they could both redefine the New Negro Womanhood while disconnecting the concept of racial betrayal from the act of passing as well as displaying potential subversion to capsize the impermeability of discursively normalized racial border.
