"Skin And Bones: Transgenerational Trauma, Experimental Storytelling, A" by Janine Blue

Graduation Term

Spring 2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Department of English

Committee Chair

Ricardo Cruz

Committee Co-Chair

Joyce Walker

Committee Member

Elise Hurley

Abstract

This dissertation theorizes and enacts experimental storytelling as a method for engaging transgenerational trauma, highlighting how form shapes the ways histories are remembered, embodied, and reimagined across generations. Grounded in hope rehearsal as both a theoretical and creative framework, this project examines how BIPOC writers use experimental writing techniques to navigate the afterlives of historical trauma and reclaim storytelling as an act of meaning-making, communal care, and futurity. The dissertation begins with a critical chapter that explores these experimental techniques as strategies for recovery and resistance. The dissertations’ creative chapter, Andre Lyle: Skin and Bones, expands on these ideas through original experimental prose that interrogates memory’s instability, the echoes of transgenerational trauma, and the interwoven relationship between text, body, and archive. The dissertation concludes with considerations of how hope rehearsal can be applied to creative writing classrooms, fostering spaces where students engage experimental techniques to navigate identity, history, and collective healing.

Access Type

Dissertation-Open Access

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