Policing the boundaries of whiteness : monsters made in the USA

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation explores institutionalized racism in American culture that signifies through the Reconstruction era Klansman, the folklore of the Night Doctor, and what I've dubbed the White Monstrous Feminine. My analyses of these monsters depends upon contextual explorations wherein the monster serves as a starting point to understanding the larger, interwoven race and racism of White Supremacy. My methodology is foregrounded in decoloniality and the concept of de-linking from the idea that Western epistemology is the only way to "know" the world. Additionally, the theoretical standpoint of this dissertation is shaped by Critical Race Theory and the insistence that positionality and experience together are a key category of knowledge production. In this way, I aim to articulate a critical practice informed by people and their ideas instead of discrete, abstract schools of thought based on a universal human experience. As a White academic I have intentionally sought out the experiences, work, and standpoints of academics of color in my effort to mark out the racial violence of Whiteness embodied by the Klansman, the Night Doctor, and the White Monstrous Feminine.