Whiteness as Usual? The Racial Politics of the 21st-Century Prize Novel

Dissertation

Whiteness as Usual? The Racial Politics of the 21st-Century Prize Novel

My project analyzes the anti-black and white supremacist practices that continue to shape the selection processes of three major anglophone literary prizes, as well as their effect on the public reception of the prize-winning literature. I argue that the 21st century sees an increase in prize-winning novels that carry great potential to foster racial literacy in the US public, which is however not fully explored, since those texts are still circulated and read within a literary field whose dynamics rely on anti-back discrimination. I follow Lani Guinier’s definition of racial literacy as the capacity to understand racism as systemic and continuous condition in the US with various effects on individual lives, and to acknowledge the agency of racially minoritized individuals in this environment (Guinier 100-115). On the example of six award winning novels, honored between 2000 and 2020, I first examine how those texts have an inscribed potential to transport racial literacy to their readers. The conditions of the award selection process in the respective years are then analyzed (e.g. jury members, author background, information about the nominees, public statements about the selection criteria) to relate the racial literacy incribed into the novels with the way the racial stratification of the literary field is dealt with by the prize institutions. In a final reception analysis of the novels as prize winners in differen media channels, I seek to determine which effect the novel’s prizes had on the public reception of their racial literacy.