Billye Raushanah Smith -- Africana Library, Cornell University

Author: Billye Raushanah Smith

Title: Countering Hegemony Through Synthesis: A Lifetime of Commitment to the Black Community in the Works of Toni Cade Bambara.

Degree Date: May 2006

Committee Chairperson: Anne Adams

Call Number: Thesis DT 3 .5 2006 S657

Description: vi, 126 leaves; 28 cm

Abstract: : I argue that Toni Cade Bambara’s entire corpus works to meld the spiritual, artistic, and political as well as the activist and the community. This theme is contained in her essays, short stories, novels, and films, but is best demonstrated in her two novels The Salt Eaters (1980) and Those Bones are Not My Child (1999). The Salt Eaters agonizingly expresses tension between the spiritual, artistic, and political but in the novel this tension goes largely unresolved. Inability to resolve these tensions leads to the protagonist’s suicide attempt and political factiousness within the Black community. Though the novel ends with the protagonist’s healing, her future, as well as that of the community, is largely left open-ended. Those Bones are Not My Child however resolves many of the tensions presented in The Salt Eaters. Those Bones are Not My Child narrows the boundaries between author and reader, activist and community. The novel, through its focus on actual events also collapses the divide between fiction and nonfiction, calling for the reader to incorporate the issues in the fiction into action in life.

I use four meta-themes as tools to examine the trajectory of Bambara’s fiction and nonfiction as it meets the goal of achieving wholeness. These meta-themes are: countering cultural hegemony, accountability, resistance to false binaries, and reconstructing cultural memory.

This thesis makes a contribution to the field of Africana Women’s literary criticism because it concerns itself with the complete corpus of Bambara’s work. It seeks to look at Bambara as a whole, as a writer with diverse interests, talents, and evolved with time. This thesis situates her work within a framework set out by Bambara herself, one that centers Black women’s voice and experiences and thus continues in the tradition she sets forth as a writer activist.


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Print This Page Thesis Abstract Author: Billye Raushanah Smith Title: Countering Hegemony Through Synthesis: A Lifetime of Commitment to the Black Community in the Works of Toni Cade Bambara. Degree Date: May 2006 Committee Chairperson: Anne Adams Call Number: Thesis DT 3 .5 2006 S657 Description: vi, 126 leaves; 28 cm Abstract: : I argue that Toni Cade Bambara’s entire corpus works to meld the spiritual, artistic, and political as well as the activist and the community. This theme is contained in her essays, short stories, novels, and films, but is best demonstrated in her two novels The Salt Eaters (1980) and *Those Bones are Not My Child* (1999). *The Salt Eaters* agonizingly expresses tension between the spiritual, artistic, and political but in the novel this tension goes largely unresolved. Inability to resolve these tensions leads to the protagonist’s suicide attempt and political factiousness within the Black community. Though the novel ends with the protagonist’s healing, her future, as well as that of the community, is largely left open-ended. *Those Bones are Not My Child* however resolves many of the tensions presented in The Salt Eaters. *Those Bones are Not My Child* narrows the boundaries between author and reader, activist and community. The novel, through its focus on actual events also collapses the divide between fiction and nonfiction, calling for the reader to incorporate the issues in the fiction into action in life. I use four meta-themes as tools to examine the trajectory of Bambara’s fiction and nonfiction as it meets the goal of achieving wholeness. These meta-themes are: countering cultural hegemony, accountability, resistance to false binaries, and reconstructing cultural memory. This thesis makes a contribution to the field of Africana Women’s literary criticism because it concerns itself with the complete corpus of Bambara’s work. It seeks to look at Bambara as a whole, as a writer with diverse interests, talents, and evolved with time. This thesis situates her work within a framework set out by Bambara herself, one that centers Black women’s voice and experiences and thus continues in the tradition she sets forth as a writer activist.

Thesis Abstract