2022
Nadejda I. Webb
Dissertation Abstract
"Excavating Representations"
Instances of unprecedented visual representation, like the recent nomination of Vice-President Kamala
Harris and the development and airing of shows like Fresh Off the Boat (2015-2020), have been marshaled
as evidence of systemic change even as Native Americans continue to be killed in police encounters at a
higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group; rates of anti-Asian assaults continue to increase due to
false connections between China and COVID-19; and African Americans continue to be unjustifiably
murdered by police officers. Excavating Representations takes the explication and investigation of this
tension, between visual representation and social progress, as a point of departure to explore a racialized
imaginary that relies upon stereotypes to primarily establish relationships between bodies in the quotidian,
and thereafter, negotiate difference. How is the imagination constantly shaped and maligned by anti-black
violence? If the on-going project of nation-making is constructed within representation and representation
depends upon legibility, how do “progressive” instances of visual representation undergird systems of white
supremacy? My dissertation returns to a reclamation of the ancestors to restore the connections lost within
a racialized society.
Instances of unprecedented visual representation, like the recent nomination of Vice-President Kamala
Harris and the development and airing of shows like Fresh Off the Boat (2015-2020), have been marshaled
as evidence of systemic change even as Native Americans continue to be killed in police encounters at a
higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group; rates of anti-Asian assaults continue to increase due to
false connections between China and COVID-19; and African Americans continue to be unjustifiably
murdered by police officers. Excavating Representations takes the explication and investigation of this
tension, between visual representation and social progress, as a point of departure to explore a racialized
imaginary that relies upon stereotypes to primarily establish relationships between bodies in the quotidian,
and thereafter, negotiate difference. How is the imagination constantly shaped and maligned by anti-black
violence? If the on-going project of nation-making is constructed within representation and representation
depends upon legibility, how do “progressive” instances of visual representation undergird systems of white
supremacy? My dissertation returns to a reclamation of the ancestors to restore the connections lost within
a racialized society.