Reading with Minor Feelings: Racialized Emotions and Children’s (Non)agency in Judges 10–12

Abstract

In this article, I read the story of Jephthah and his daughter in Judges 10–12 within the contemporary context of racism and discrimination in the U.S. Particularly focusing on the affective and emotional dimensions of the lived experiences in racially/ethnically minoritized communities, I engage the biblical story with what poet and writer Cathy Park Hong calls, “minor feelings.” Reading the biblical narrative alongside Hong’s crudely personal—and yet pervasively common—accounts of Asian American racial trauma, I critically reflect on the notion of childhood agency, and suggest that the Western conception of agency neither reflects nor promotes the lives of the children in minority groups. In turn, I ask: What if we moved away from the traditional notions of agency and voice in our critical works, and, instead, turned towards emotions, sensations, and other embodied experiences as a site of interpretation, critique, and movement for social change?