Revisiting Black Sites of Speculation: A Case for Theorizing Black Childhood as a Subject in Black Adult Narratives
Humphrey Room 25 and Zoom
Abstract: Tammy C. Owens will discuss a chapter of her manuscript in progress. The chapter examines Harriet Jacobs’ slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Owens contends that the narrative is a key “site of speculation” for studying the history of black childhood. Owens argues that Jacobs humanizes enslaved black girls by illuminating three stages of enslaved girlhood. Jacobs’ stages of enslaved girlhood suggest that black women understood their slave narratives as ideal sites for theorizing their own childhood in retrospect, while also situating black girls within larger discourses of abolition and women’s rights. To further demonstrate the significance of creative “sites of speculation,” Owens will invite the audience to embark on a journey to turn the speculative lens on themselves or the researcher who returns to a body of work after experiencing life events that make them more connected with the traumas of their research subjects. Revisiting her chapter with new connections to the subject of her research, Owens engages new questions such as: How should scholars respond to new connections with their subjects that are based on experiential knowledge? Does life play a role in how we see and speculate vulnerable populations such as the child?
Zoom: Our hope is that most people will attend in-person, but fully realize that some of you will need to attend via Zoom (The passcode is: tammy1)
About the Speaker
Tammy C. Owens is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. Owens received her PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. Owens is currently working on her book manuscript on the ways black girls and women have used their writing to both etch black girlhood into the fabric of American History and also challenge dominant ideologies of American childhood and innocence. Owens’ research has been published in journals such as Women, Gender, and Families of Color and Departures in Critical Qualitative Research. Owens also publishes public scholarship on topics such as feminism, black motherhood, and relationships.