POETICS OF SURVIVAL: INTERSECTIONS OF RACE, MEMORY, AND FEMINIST RESISTANCE IN CLAUDIA RANKINE’S CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC

Abstract

 The paper will discuss Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2014) in terms of Critical Race Theory (bell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw), Memory Studies (Paul Connerton) and Feminist Resistance Theory. CRT study is the use of everyday racism and microaggression by Rankine; it is not an incident but a systemic power and intersectionality embedded in systemic power. The reason is in the fact that racial trauma is embedded in the consciousness of individuals and groups; the cultural memory as introduced by Connerton is the way fragmented lyric narratives serve as a repository of violence and survival. The how is clarified by the Feminist Resistance Theory which puts the emphasis on the second-person address, hybrid text form, and poetic fragmentation as the methods of opposing the hegemonic silencing and reasserting the political voice. The combination of these frameworks makes the argument that Citizen produces a poetics of survival where race, gender, and memory become united so as to fight structural racism and exaggerate marginalized subjectivities.