Whiteness in Nineteenth-Century Speculative Writing

Murray, HL (2025) Whiteness in Nineteenth-Century Speculative Writing In: Whiteness and American Literature. Cambridge University Press, pp. 121-134. ISBN 9781009522793, 1009522795

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Summary

This chapter surveys attitudes to and depictions of whiteness in nineteenth-century speculative writing. These genres (the gothic, science fiction, utopia, and dystopia) were in conversation with and shaped by cultural and scientific discussions throughout the century that treated whiteness as both a biological and social concept that could shift, expand, and potentially degrade. Speculative texts articulated and often exorcised fears that whiteness could be lost and white Americans could experience the dispossession associated with the non-white Other due to failures to embody white civic values and shifting demographics. Across three categories (gothic whiteness, fantasies of white transformation, future whiteness) this chapter demonstrates that whiteness itself became speculative and open to change beyond the physically possible. As part of each category, this chapter also draws attention to how African American writers used speculative genres to return the othering gaze to whiteness and briefly imagine worlds without white supremacy.

Item Type:	Chapter
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Literary Criticism
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of the Arts
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	18 Feb 2025 08:16
Last Modified:	14 Apr 2026 08:47
DOI:	10.1017/9781009522748.011
Related Websites:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3190357
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