JOURNAL ARTICLE

Dancing Bodies in Zadie Smith's Swing Time.

  • Published In: Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, 2024, v. 55, n. 2. P. 85 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Yang, Karen Ya-Chu 3 of 3

Abstract

This essay reads Zadie Smith's Swing Time (2016) as generating innovative and insightful conversations between literary criticism and dance studies. Smith's novel explores the onstage and offstage performative experiences and challenges of hybridized bodies and hyphenated identities in a transcontinental context. The novel sets up an interactive dancefloor for its leading characters—the unnamed female narrator and her childhood friend Tracey—both of whom are biracial and live in the working-class neighborhoods of Northwest London. Drawing from cultural studies and dance theories, this essay considers the narrator's and Tracey's practices and experiences of dance to discuss the swinging connections and disconnections between selves, bodies, and cultures carried through the protagonists' challenged expressions of agency and mobility in glocal and transnational contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Ariel: A Review of International English Literature. 2024/04, Vol. 55, Issue 2, p85
  • Document Type:Literary Criticism
  • Subject Area:Literature and Writing
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:0004-1327
  • DOI:10.1353/ari.2024.a925430
  • Accession Number:176930321
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 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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