Of Black Boys and Haunted Houses: Spectrality and Historical Rewriting in Randall Kenan’s Short Fiction

Since the so-called spectral turn of the 1990s, the ghost has been placed at the forefront of critical debates as a conceptual metaphor through which to destabilize the hegemonic discourses and values of modernity. Adopting the theoretical framework of spectrality studies, this paper seeks to interrogate the functions fulfilled by the ghost in “Tell Me, Tell Me” (1992) and “Resurrection Hardware or, Lard and Promises” (2018) by Randall Kenan. The comparative analysis of both narratives will render spectrality as a multi-layered metaphor of great socio-political import that allows for the articulation of transhistorical Black oppression in America and effects a historical revision aimed at the re-inscription of marginalized and silenced voices.