FEELINGS WORK: AN EXAMINATION OF EMOTIONAL LABOR IN BLACK AMERICAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE

The term “emotional labor” has gained considerable recognition as a means to articulate a complex series of responsibilities that women assume both within and outside the marketplace. Despite increasing attention from scholars and activists, there has yet to be an examination of how emotional labor is represented in literature. My dissertation seeks to address this gap in the scholarship by exploring what I contend is a profound concern with emotional labor in works written by Black American women. While early conceptions of the term are tied to gender-based inequalities, I shift focus to consider the overlooked racial dimensions of the phenomenon. Through close readings of notable texts from the tradition, I demonstrate that Black American women writers have specifically focused on emotional labor in the context of formal and informal racial justice efforts. This labor predominantly takes the form of instruction and storytelling that is carefully curated for white Americans. I argue that the Black American women’s literature cited in this doctoral study continually expresses a duty to engage in these two tasks, in the service of greater racial equality in the United States. Adopting an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, I analyze a range of memoirs, essays, fiction, and poetry to showcase how Black American women writers utilize diverse literary forms to interrogate the emotional labor they undertake. Ultimately, I assert that an examination of this rich literary tradition may reveal that the writings of Black American women offer valuable insights into the racialization of emotional labor, as well as deepen our understanding of their unique historical role in the enduring struggle for racial equalityin the United States.