JOURNAL ARTICLE

Disrupting Anti-Blackness: David Walker's Fugitive Inhabitation of an American Grammar.

  • Published In: J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, 2025, v. 13, n. 1. P. 69 1 of 3

  • Database: America: History and Life with Full Text 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Plasencia, Sam 3 of 3

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Walker's insurgency, arguing that his unique typographical performance usurps dominant grammatical and rhetorical forms (italics, em-dashes, negative questions, shifting pronouns, commas, metonymic slippages, and repetition) in order to scramble the governing anti-Black episteme, wherein language is variously deployed to suppress, elide, mask, legitimize, and normalize the violence of anti-Blackness. By stalling the normal interpellative operations of America's formal grammatical and rhetorical infrastructures, Walker advances a theorization of anti-Blackness as an ontological problem while simultaneously deforming its rhetorical structuring vis-à-vis an ungovernable, fugitive inhabitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. 2025/03, Vol. 13, Issue 1, p69
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:History
  • Publication Date:2025
  • ISSN:2166-742X
  • DOI:10.1353/jnc.2025.a970109
  • Accession Number:188870595
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists is the property of Johns Hopkins University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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