Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative
This article examines how the hauntings in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Louise Edrich’s The Night Watchman (2020) work to counteract the silencing of cultural trauma and minority histories within the hegemonic historical narrative of the United States. Both of these novels—works fro...
שמור ב:
| הוצא לאור ב: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ejas, |
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| מחבר ראשי: | |
| פורמט: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| שפה: | Anglais |
| יצא לאור: |
European journal of American studies
2026
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| נושאים: | |
| גישה מקוונת: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| id |
openedition-oai:revues.org:ejas_26523 |
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| record_format |
openedition |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:ejas_26523 https://doi.org/10.4000/16ks1 urn:doi:10.4000/16ks1 en https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/26523 2026-07-15T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/16ks1 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative European journal of American studies European Association for American Studies info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1991-9336 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ejas Fakkeldij, Femke literary hauntings; cultural memory; historical silencing; Sing Unburied Sing; The Night Watchman This article examines how the hauntings in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Louise Edrich’s The Night Watchman (2020) work to counteract the silencing of cultural trauma and minority histories within the hegemonic historical narrative of the United States. Both of these novels—works from the African American and Indigenous (Ojibwe) literary traditions, respectively—use spectrality to uncover and reclaim histories that have been largely excluded from the cultural memory of the US. Drawing on two novels from distinct literary traditions illustrates how literary ghosts and their engagement with historical silencing transcends culture-specific contexts, and situates the systemic practice of silencing in a national framework. This article argues that stories of cultural haunting resist the silencing of minority histories within the cultural memory of the US and complicate the hegemonic historical narrative that is central to the construction of an American national identity. |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
literary hauntings; cultural memory; historical silencing; Sing Unburied Sing; The Night Watchman |
| spellingShingle |
literary hauntings; cultural memory; historical silencing; Sing Unburied Sing; The Night Watchman Fakkeldij, Femke Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative |
| description |
This article examines how the hauntings in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Louise Edrich’s The Night Watchman (2020) work to counteract the silencing of cultural trauma and minority histories within the hegemonic historical narrative of the United States. Both of these novels—works from the African American and Indigenous (Ojibwe) literary traditions, respectively—use spectrality to uncover and reclaim histories that have been largely excluded from the cultural memory of the US. Drawing on two novels from distinct literary traditions illustrates how literary ghosts and their engagement with historical silencing transcends culture-specific contexts, and situates the systemic practice of silencing in a national framework. This article argues that stories of cultural haunting resist the silencing of minority histories within the cultural memory of the US and complicate the hegemonic historical narrative that is central to the construction of an American national identity. |
| author |
Fakkeldij, Femke |
| author_facet |
Fakkeldij, Femke |
| author_sort |
Fakkeldij, Femke |
| title |
Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative |
| title_short |
Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative |
| title_full |
Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative |
| title_fullStr |
Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Specters of a Silenced Past: Literary Ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Night Watchman and the Deconstruction of America’s Historical Narrative |
| title_sort |
specters of a silenced past: literary ghosts in sing, unburied, sing and the night watchman and the deconstruction of america’s historical narrative |
| publisher |
European journal of American studies |
| publishDate |
2026 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ejas |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/16ks1 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/26523 |
| _version_ |
1877291636472414208 |