{"title":"Alter Egoing","authors":"Larissa A. Irizarry","doi":"10.25158/l11.1.5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I use alter egoing as a heuristic, a method for solving the problem of the evolving alter egos of Black women in popular music. When alter egos are analyzed through this lens, the refashioning of artistic imaginaries become legible as intellectual labor. The intellectual labor that Janelle Monáe primarily provides are critiques of notions of womanhood and Blackness in the United States. I understand Monáe’s alter egoing as a reaction to the affective political strategies mobilized in US electoral politics. Former President Barack Obama developed an affective strategy based on his personal brand of optimism, first presented in his book 'The Audacity of Hope' (2006). He developed his signature optimistic politics while he was a senator and he continued to promote his “audacious hopefulness” into his 2008 presidential campaign. Former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign also utilized an affective political strategy, as he rallied his supporters around culturally white (male) nostalgia with the cry, “Make America Great Again.” I track the affective evolution of Monáe’s alter egoing from pessimism to optimism in the context of the anti-Black populisms of the post-Obama era (2016–), culminating in a close reading of her 2018 album, 'Dirty Computer.' In identifying Monáe's troubled relationship with notions of normative identity through her first alter ego, I evaluate the relevance of posthumanism and Afrofuturism, which scholars have used to critique American notions of race, gender, and sexuality. In analyzing the shift in affect from her first alter ego to her most recent, I detect in Monáe's alter egoing a critical optimism, a disidentifying strategy that begins to take shape in 'Dirty Computer.'\n","PeriodicalId":7777,"journal":{"name":"Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.25158/l11.1.5","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
摘要
在这篇文章中,我将改变自我作为一种启发式的方法,来解决流行音乐中黑人女性改变自我的演变问题。当通过这个镜头分析另一个自我时,艺术想象的重塑就变成了智力劳动。Janelle Monáe主要提供的智力劳动是对美国女性和黑人观念的批判。我理解Monáe的改变是对美国选举政治中调动的情感政治策略的反应。美国前总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)根据他个人的乐观主义品牌制定了一种有效的策略,这一策略首次出现在他的著作《无畏的希望》(The Audacity of Hope, 2006)中。他在担任参议员期间形成了他标志性的乐观主义政治,并在2008年的总统竞选中继续宣扬他的“大胆的希望”。前总统唐纳德·特朗普在2016年的总统竞选中也使用了一种情感政治策略,他以“让美国再次伟大”(Make America Great Again)的口号,将自己的支持者团结在白人(男性)怀旧情绪周围。我追踪了Monáe在后奥巴马时代(2016 -)的反黑人民粹主义背景下从悲观到乐观的情感演变,并在仔细阅读她2018年的专辑《Dirty Computer》时达到高潮。在通过她的第一个自我来确定Monáe与规范性身份概念的麻烦关系时,我评估了后人类主义和非洲未来主义的相关性,学者们用它们来批评美国的种族、性别和性观念。在分析她从第一个自我到最近一个自我的情感转变时,我在Monáe的自我中发现了一种批判的乐观主义,一种在《肮脏的电脑》中开始形成的不认同策略。
In this article, I use alter egoing as a heuristic, a method for solving the problem of the evolving alter egos of Black women in popular music. When alter egos are analyzed through this lens, the refashioning of artistic imaginaries become legible as intellectual labor. The intellectual labor that Janelle Monáe primarily provides are critiques of notions of womanhood and Blackness in the United States. I understand Monáe’s alter egoing as a reaction to the affective political strategies mobilized in US electoral politics. Former President Barack Obama developed an affective strategy based on his personal brand of optimism, first presented in his book 'The Audacity of Hope' (2006). He developed his signature optimistic politics while he was a senator and he continued to promote his “audacious hopefulness” into his 2008 presidential campaign. Former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign also utilized an affective political strategy, as he rallied his supporters around culturally white (male) nostalgia with the cry, “Make America Great Again.” I track the affective evolution of Monáe’s alter egoing from pessimism to optimism in the context of the anti-Black populisms of the post-Obama era (2016–), culminating in a close reading of her 2018 album, 'Dirty Computer.' In identifying Monáe's troubled relationship with notions of normative identity through her first alter ego, I evaluate the relevance of posthumanism and Afrofuturism, which scholars have used to critique American notions of race, gender, and sexuality. In analyzing the shift in affect from her first alter ego to her most recent, I detect in Monáe's alter egoing a critical optimism, a disidentifying strategy that begins to take shape in 'Dirty Computer.'