Indiana State UniversityThe Haunting of 124Author(s): Carol E. SchmuddeSource: African American Review, Vol. 26, No. 3, Fiction Issue (Autumn, 1992), pp. 409-416Published by: Indiana State UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3041913 .Accessed: 05/06/2014 06:16Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. .Indiana State University and St. Louis University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to African American Review.http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsTheHauntingof 124 oni Morrison'snovel Beloveddissolves chronologicalse- ,.quences and interweaves multiple narrativevoices in a radi- cal redefinitionof narrativestructure.However, at least one con- ventional formal patterninforms the novel: At the most basic level of plot and setting, Belovedis a ghost story, the tale of a nine- teen-yearhaunting of a house at 124 BluestoneRoad in Cincinnati. Though the openended structureof Beloveddefies traditional formalanalysis, nevertheless its narrativesequence createsdisso- nance through increasinglyintrusive manifestationsof haunting until that conflict is resolved by the exorcismof the ghost. Morrison'snarrativetreats the presence of the ghost with folk- loric givenness;in contrastto most conventional ghost stories, sus- pense and terrorare creatednot by the supernaturalper se but by the effect on the main charactersof confrontingthe undead past in the context of the present, and by the effect on the readerof confrontingthe historicalpast through the mythic past of fiction. In her account of the haunting of 124, Morrisonemploys most of the manifestationstraditionalto stories of haunted houses: noises, displaced objects,smells, lights, a brooding atmosphere, and the sensitivity of an animal to the presence of the ghost ("Haunting," Encyclopedia;"HauntedHouses,"Man,Myth,and Magic). Beloved is much more complexly characterizedthan most fictionalghosts, but she shares many featuresof traditionalmani- festationsof phantoms in human form who inhabithaunted houses. She has "new skin, lineless and smooth' (50),except for the telltale scars of her violent death. She knows things no human being could know. She has supernaturalstrengthand the ability to change shape and to appearand disappearat will. She puts a spell on Paul D which moves him out of the house, and she is fi- nally exorcised by a ritual act of prayersand chanting.Morrison combines traditionalaccountsof haunting from both European and Africansources;Denver's vision of a white dress's embracing her motherparallelsaccountsof headless haunts, dressed in white, which appearfrequentlyamong the stories collected from blacksalong the coasts of Georgiaand South Carolina(Drumsand Shadows6,19,29,44,60,123). The articleon "Haunting' in the Encyclopediaof Occultismand Parapsychologysays that "traditionestablished two main factorsin haunting:an old house or other locale and restlessnessof a spirit. The first representsan unbrokenlink with the past, the second is believed to be caused by remorseover an evil life or by the shock of violent death' (588).In Morrison'snovel, the restless spirit of Beloved so dominates the narrativethat it is easy to overlook the importanceof the first factorin a haunting:an old house repre- senting "anunbrokenlink with the past."124 BluestoneRoad is both the traditionalhaunted house of the conventionalghost story, and a radicallypossessed and repossessed arenaof historic Carol E. Schmudde is Professorof Englishat EasternIllinoisUniversity, whereshe teachescoursesin AfricanAmericanliterature. African American Review,Volume26,Number 3 @ 1992 Carol E. Schmudde 409 This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionsand mythic confrontation.Situatedbe- tween the Ohio River,which marks the boundarybetween slave and free territory,and a streammarkingthe watery boundaryAfricanmyth places between the worlds of the living and the dead, 124 is a point of intersection for powerful antitheticalforces:North and South, black and white, past and present,this world and the other. Morrison'sreferencesto the Ohio River and to the streambehind 124 blend Christianand Africanwater symbolism. The Ohio River,as the lit- eral boundarybetween slavery and freedom,was frequentlyanalogized in slave songs and sermons to the RiverJordan,the boundarythe chil- dren of Israelcrossed over to end their forty years of wandering in the wilderness and to enter the Promised Land. Crossingthe river into the PromisedLand is also an analogy for dying and enteringthe promised hap- piness of heaven. SterlingStuckey,in SlaveCulture,discusses "the Kalunga line," a "waterybarrier"which "di- vides this world from the next" and "symbolizesthe surfaceof a body of water beneathwhich the world of the ancestorsis found" (13). MorrisonintroducesBeloved with the words, "A fully dressed woman walked out of the water" (50). In the summer of 1873 she emerges from the streamthat flows behind 124 and makes her way through the woods and across the field to the house. Driven from 124 in the sum- mer of 1874,Beloved is seen going back to the water-"downby the stream ...cutting through the woods, a naked woman with fish for hair" (267).In the novel's penultimatepara- graph,the narrativevoice says, "By and by all traceis gone, and what is forgottenis not only the footprintsbut the water too and what it is down there."What is "down there"is the "world of the ancestors."Morrison's narrativeimplies that the ghost, never named except for the memorializing word that appears on her tombstone, possessesnot onlythe memoriesand experiencesof Sethe's baby daughter but alsothe memoriesand experi- encesof severalgenerationsof her an- cestors,goingback throughthe Mid- dle Passageto Africa. When Denver asks Beloved, " 'What's it like over there, whereyouwerebefore?' n (75), Beloveddescribesa place reminiscent bothof a womband the holdof a slaveship,whereshe is small,curled in the fetal position,crowded,and strugglingto breathe. She remembers swimmingthroughwater, waitingon a bridge,and emergingfrom the waterto arrive at 124. he mythicalCincinnatiin which Morrison'snarrative is set vi- brates withthe tensionsof historical and evenpre-historicalCincinnati, Ohio. The city is builton a numberof Indian mounds.Paul D hears the dis- possessedand restlessspirits of the deadMiamias he walksfrom 124 to his job at the stock yardsby a route "that took himsmackdab throughthe middleof a cemeteryas oldas sky" (155). The increasingtensionbetween Northand Southin the periodbefore the Civil War wasespeciallyacute in Cincinnati,the first free-soilstation of the UndergroundRailwayacross the Ohio from the slavestate of Kentucky, but closelytied by trade and kinship withthe South(Dabney20-21, 58-62). Belovedis "a mythicrevisioning," in the wordsof Karla F. C. Holloway (516), of the historicalaccountof Mar- garet Garner, a fugitiveslavewho withher husbandand four children crossedthe ice of the frozenOhioto Cincinnati in 1856. WhileMorrison's fiction changesmanydetailsof the his- torical account,it retains a significant numberof them,includingthe ap- proximatedate; the nameGamer;the number,sex, and agesof Margaret Garner's children; the attribution of someof the detailsof Margaret Garner's mother-in-law'slife to Baby Suggs;thecentralactionofan es- 410AFRICANAMERICANREVIEW This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionscapedslavemother'scuttingher daughter'sthroat and attemptingto kill her other childrento preventtheir recapture by slavehunters;and Marga- ret Garner's defenseby an abolitionist lawyer.Accordingto one contempo- rary account, the tragedyoccurred in the houseof a black man on the out- skirts of Cincinnati, "in the West End, belowMill Creek," wherethe Garner familyhad soughtrefuge(Dabney64- 65; Harris 10). NoBluestoneRoad appearson Cincinnati mapsfrom the 1850s throughthe 1880s, but the fictionalge- ographyof Belovedis consonantwith imagining124 BluestoneRoad in the area of Cincinnati whereMargaret Garner killedher daughter.This con- sonanceappliesnot onlyto the gen- eral spatial relationshipsof river, city, and stock yards, but also to smaller details. It mightseemstrange, for ex- ample,that a housedescribedas far out from the city's center shouldhave a numberno higherthan 124, but ex- aminationof nineteenth-century mapsrevealsthat the numberingof houses"in the West End, belowMill Creek" starts from the Ohio River. The earliest historyMorrison's narrative givesus of 124 itself is that it belongedto the grandparentsof aboli- tionistEdwinBodwinand his sister, whoownthe houseat the timethe eventsof Belovedoccur. Thoughwe are not told whenthe housewasbuilt, thegenerationaltime-spanofBod- winfamilyhistoryimpliesa mid- eighteenth-centuryorigin(it is possi- ble to argue that the impliedhistory of the housecoversthe sametime- span as Beloved'sancestral memories, whichappear to includefour genera- tions). Bodwinremembersof 124 that "womendiedthere: his mother, his grandmother,an aunt and an older sister before he wasborn" (259). EdwinBodwinwasthree years old whenhis familyleft the houseand movedinto the city; giventhat he and his sister have"faces too youngfor their snow-whitehair" (144) when Baby Suggsfirst seesthemat mid-cen- tury, the movemusthaveoccurred around the endof the first decadeof the century. In 1874, he hasn't seen the housefor thirty years. The Bodwinsrent 124 to a succes- sionof black tenants; the area around BluestoneRoad becomesa black com- munity.At mid-century,the Bodwins allowthe newlyfreed Baby Suggsto livein their houseon BluestoneRoad in exchangefor domesticwork,even thoughthe houseis "too big" for her (145). Inhabited by Baby Suggs,the housebecomesa messagecenter and havenfor runawayswhere"talk was lowand to the point"(87). After Sethe's killingof the baby in 1855, however,"124 shutdownand put up withthe venomof its ghost" (89). Changesover the yearsin the structure and appearanceof 124 re- flect the tensionsin its "unbroken link withthe past." The houseis a two- story structure, paintedgray and whitein 1873, witha front porch fac- ing on BluestoneRoad. It has two roomsupstairsand twodown,with the larger room on each floor toward the front of the house.The front en- trance opensoff the porch into a large downstairsroom, and a stairwayrises to the secondfloor from that same room. When the Bodwinslivedin the house,the cookingwasdonein a kitchen outbuilding.When Baby Suggsmovesin, she closesthe door, literally, on her daysof slaveryin other people'skitchens by boarding up the back door whichledto the kitchen outbuildingand building aroundit to make a storeroom,be- cause"she didn't wantto make that journeyno more" (207). Thoughcriti- cizedfor "fixing a two-storyhouseup like a cabin whereyoucookinside" (207), Baby Suggsputsher kitchen in the main room of the house,the large downstairsroom one enters from the front porch, and the housebecomes "a waystation" (65) where"not one but twopotssimmeredon the stove; wherethe lamp burnedall night THEHAUNTINGOF 124411 This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionslong" (87).Sethe remembersthat the yard then "had a fence with a gate that somebody was always latching and unlatching"(163).BabySuggs tries to make 124 a safe house with only one door behind that gate "so if you want to get in 124 you have to come by her" (207). Thenarrativevoice providesaninventoryof outbuildings:"Therewas onlyonedoortothehouse andtogettoitfromthe backyouhadtowalkall the wayaroundto the front of124,pastthestoreroom, pastthecoldhouse,the privy,theshed,onaround totheporch"(29).What happened, then, to the kitchenout- building, that visible reminderof the slave past? BabySuggs turned it into a "woodshed and toolroom"(207).It is the woodshed where Sethe kills her daughterwith a handsaw as the slave hunters hitch their horses to the fence and open the gate. Morrison'srevi- sioning myth conveys the historical truth that, while the Fugitive Slave Law was the law of the land, there could be no safe house, no way to close door or gate on the horrorsof slavery. Changes in the upper story of 124 also reflecttensions between social history and mythic signification. When the Bodwins lived in the house, the hired help slept in the smallerof the two upstairsbedrooms.Before BabySuggs, a black preacherand his family of eighteen childrenlived in the house. When BabySuggs moves in, space opens up upstairs.Lame from a hip injury,BabySuggs makes her bedroom the "keepingroom,"the smallerback room downstairs, though she is "excitedabout a house with steps-nevermind she couldn't climb them" (145).The upstairs spaces have premonitoryattraction for Sethe's baby daughterduring the few months she lives in 124 before her death at the hands of her mother. At themost basiclevel of plot and setting, Belovedisa ghoststory. Sethe, who believes that killing her daughterwas the way to help her to safety, tells Paul D that the baby "loved those steps so much we painted them so she could see her way to the top" (160).The "lightning white" (13) stairs seem to Paul D to open onto a supernaturalrealm: Outofthedimnessofthe roominwhichtheysat,a whitestaircase climbedto- wardtheblue-and-white wallpaperofthesecond floor. Paul D couldsee just the beginningof the paper; discreetflecksofyellow sprinkled among a blizzard of snowdropsall backed by blue.Theluminouswhite of the railing and steps kept him glancing toward it. Every sense hehadtoldhimtheair abovethe stairwellwascharmedandvery thin.(11) Other-worldlinessis emphasized by the fact that, because "the second story windows of that house had been placed in the pitched ceiling and not the walls" (20), Paul D, lying in Sethe's bed, "looked through the win- dow above his feet" (22). WhenPaul D asks Beloved "'What was you looking for when you came here?"' she replies " 'This place. I was looking for this place I could be in"' (65).The house at 124 Bluestone Road is thus a neces- sary condition of Beloved's appear- ance, and it also is a condition of her interactionwith the other characters of the novel. In a conventional ghost story, the haunted house is a setting in which the charactersconfrontand attemptto defeat a frighteningexter- nal force. For Denver, Paul D, and Sethe, who all live for a time with Be- loved in 124, the force is both external and internal;the house shapes and the ghost gives expression to their own repressedinner conflicts.Their perceptionsof the ghost are inextrica- bly linked with their perceptionsof 412AFRICANAMERICANREVIEW This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionsthe houseitself; the settingforces self- confrontation. For Denver,124 is a fortress. Its boundaries(the yard, field,and woodsback to the stream behindthe house)are a line of defenseagainst the outsideworld.Within these boundaries,she is also constantlyon guard againsther mother.She reasons: . . . somethingin her . ..makesit all right to kill her own.....Whatever itis,itcomes from outsidethis house, outside the yard ....So I never leave this house and I watch over the yard, soitcan't happen againand my motherwon'thave to kill me too. (205) Denver'scomplicateddependencies, anxieties,and hostilitiesmake her a likely poltergeistfocus. Poltergeist outbreaks are mostlikelyto occur in the houseof a youngperson,mostfre- quentlyfemale,usuallyhealthy,of av- erage or aboveaverageintelligence, sometimessufferingfrom hysterical attacks ("Poltergeists," Encyclopedia). Healthyand of aboveaverageintelfi- gence,Denversuddenlygoesdeaf at the age of seven,whena classmate's questionmakesher confront her re- pressedknowledgeof her mother'sat- tempt to kill her. Her two-year-long deafnessis broken by the soundof the baby ghostcrawlingup the stairs. Morrison tells us that the return of Denver'shearing "signaledanother shift in the fortunesof the peopleof 124. From then on the presencewas full of spite"(104). The poltergeistexpresses Denver'sanger against her mother. Denveridentifieswithher deadsister; the ghostbecomesher onlyplaymate in a lonelychildhood.She feelssafest in the companyof the ghost,both of them confinedto a hauntedhouse. Denveris afraid of Paul D, who comesfrom outsidethe house,and she is jealousof her mother'sinterest in him. When Paul D drivesthe polter- geist out, Denverexperienceshis at- tack on the ghostas an attack on her- self. Belovedreturns in the fleshto do what on one level is a carryingout of Denver's wishes-shemoves Paul D out of the house. Her sister's appearanceis at first perceived by Denver as an opportu- nity for increasedcompanionship,but as the ghost focuses more and more demandingly on Sethe, Denver draws away and defines herself in opposi- tion to Beloved. It is Denver, finally, who breaksthe spell Beloved has woven inside 124;she does it by leav- ing the yard, which she thinks of as stepping "off the edge of the world" (243),and going for help. She has learned that the house is no fortress, that, while the outside world is fraughtwith danger,interactionwith it is necessaryin order to live and grow. For Paul D, 124 is an uneasy rest- ing place, always on the verge of be- coming an arenafor combat.In his years of escaping from slavery, being recapturedand escaping again, he learned to define freedom by his abil- ity to keep moving on. He is subjectto "house-fits"(115).He wants to live with Sethe, but tells her," ' Tmnot say- ing this because I need a place to stay"' (46).Withinhours of his ar- rival he has engaged in combatwith the poltergeist,outdoing it in violence until the house is quiet. When Be- loved appearsseveral days later,Paul D does not recognize her as the incar- nation of the ghost he thinks he has vanquished,but he fears there is something supernaturalabout her. Baffledby and resentfulof Sethe's ac- ceptanceof Beloved, "he couldn't put her out of a house that wasn't his" (66).Then Paul D finds himself spend- ing the night in locationsfurtherand furtheraway from Sethe'sbed-the main room, the keeping room, the storeroom.Paul D thinks his actions are voluntary,but when he finds him- self sleeping in the cold house, an outbuilding,he realizes what has hap- pened. Beloved comes to him in the cold house, insisting, " 'I want you to touch me on the inside part and call THEHAUNTINGOF 124413 This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionsme my name"" (116).Unable to resist, he does what she demands. He feels deeply ashamed,because Beloved has made him relive what for him was the most bitterpart of slavery, the loss of his manhood in powerless obedience to the commands of others.He moves out of 124 in defeat. Only afterthe spirit has been exorcised does he re- turn. Having been forced to confront his self-doubts, he realizes he has been drawn intodimensions ofexperi- encebeyondthisworld: "...inthemidstofrepul- sionandpersonal shame, hewasthankfultoofor havingbeenescortedto someocean-deep place he oncebelongedto"(264). Thenarrative voicesays, "...hiscomingisthere- verse of his going." Begin- ningwiththecoldhouse, hereoccupiesthespaces Belovedhadmovedhim out of. His imagination re- claimsthehouse; looking at the bed in Sethe's room, "It seems to him a place he isnot. With aneffort that makes him sweat he forces a pictureof himself lying there, and when he sees it, it lifts his spirit." When he goes back downstairsto en- counterSethe, he leaves "the image of himself firmly in place on the narrow bed" (270). ForSethe, 124 provides a chang- ing definition of her identity. During her month there in 1855,before the ar- rival of the slavehunters,124 is a place of friendshipand activitywhere she practicesbeing free. When she returns to the house afterher imprisonment, the community withdraws in disap- proval and 124 becomes a refuge. Sethe is proud of her ability to survive there alone with Denver and the ghost afterBabySuggs's death, and she is proud of living in a two-story house; she "left a dirt floor to come to this Belovedmay be uniquein usingthe ghoststory to shockits readersinto locatingthe sourceof horror in the repressed and unclaimed realitiesof the factual, historical past. one" (22),the only house she's ever had. Yet her life at 124 is claustropho- bic, drained of color. The house "crowded in on her ...until Paul D ar- rived and broke up the place, making room,...then standing in the place he had made";with Paul D in the house, windows "suddenly had view" (39).But the return of the ghost in the person of Beloved indicates that Sethe is not yet ready to leave behind the unre- solved conflicts of her past and move on to a new life with Paul D. When Paul D leaves, Sethe recognizes Beloved as her dead daughterre- turned, and 124 becomes for her a place outside time. Sethe concludes that ". . . there is no worldout- side my door" (184).The mutual absorptionof the three women in the house and their withdrawal from the world outside is sym- bolized by Stamp Paid's footprintsin the snow, cir- cling the house, unable to enter. Reunitedwith her daughter,Sethe turns 124 into a playhouse to recreatethe child- hood Beloved never had, gathering flowers and jars of lightning bugs, tackingup newspaper pictures, deco- ratingthe railing of the white staircase the baby had loved with "ribbons, bows, bouquets";when he returns later, Paul D thinks it looks like "the house of a very tall child" (270). But as Beloved's recriminations and Sethe's explanationsintensify, 124 becomes a madhouse. The narra- tive voice says, "Ifthe whitepeople of Cincinnatihad allowed Negroes into their lunatic asylum they could have found candidates in 124"(250).When the women of the black community conclude that Sethe has "lost her wits" (254),they organize the exorcism that drives Beloved from the house and re- 414AFRICANAMERICANREVIEW This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsleasesSethe from her madness.When Paul D returns at the endof the novel, Sethe is lyingexhaustedon the bedin the keepingroom,a locationwhich suggeststwopossibleendingsto Morrison's openendednarrative: Like Baby Suggs,Sethe can stay in that bed and giveup living;or, repeatingher ownrecoveryof healthand strength in that bedafter escapingfrom slav- ery in 1855, she can begina newlife again, freed from enslavementto her ownpast. hroughout the novel,Morrison 1empowersthe houseby personi- fyingit. Denverthinksof it as "a per- sonrather than a structure" (29). Each of the three sectionsinto whichBe- loved is dividedbegins,in fact, witha statementabout the moodof the house:"124 wasspiteful"(3), "124 wasloud"(169), "124 wasquiet" (239). At the endof the novel,Paul D knowsthe hauntingis over because the house"doesnot lookback at him"; nowit is "just another weath- ered houseneedingrepair" (264). Emptiedof its ghost,124 is "stone quiet....A bleak and minusnothing" (270). There is "too muchlight," Paul D thinks; "Things looksold"(271). The house,he has heard, is about to be soldbecauseSister Bodwinthinks it is "full of trouble." Paul D and Stamp Paid, both wellacquainted withthe house'spowers,are skeptical that it can be disposedof soeasily: " 'Who they think wanta houseout there? Anybodygot the moneydon't wantto liveout there' " (264). But liv- ing there may no longer be the issue; Morrison's narrative showsthat the life has goneout of the housewiththe passingof its dead. A passagerecording Edwin Bodwin'sthoughtsshowsus124 from a perspectivewhichmovesit out of mythback into social history.Though Bodwinfeelsa great sentimentalat- tachmentto the house,"the land,of course,eightyacres of it on both sides of Bluestone,wasthe central thing" (259). The shellof the hauntedhouse, werealize, sits on a pieceof prime real estate on the outskirtsof an ex- pandingcity. Nolongera gatewayto the other world,"not claimed"(274) like the ghostwhois drivenfrom it, 124 is also about to be obliterated from the memoryof the living. The conventionsof the traditional ghoststory shapeand guidereader ex- pectationsthroughthe radically rede- finedtime and space Morrison's narra- tiveoccupies.There are someprece- dentsin other psychologicaltales of the supernatural,suchas thoseby Henry James and Edith Wharton, for Morrison's useof a hauntingto bring her characters not just into confronta- tion withthe unexplainableother, but, more importantly,into confronta- tion withthe dimensionsof their own experiencetheymustcometo terms within order to cometruly to life. But Belovedmay be uniquein usingthe ghoststory to shock its readers into lo- catingthe sourceof horror not in mys- teries beyondthis world,but rather in the repressedand unclaimedrealities of the factual, historical past. Works Cited Dabney, Wendell P. Cincinnat's Colored Citizens:Historical,Sociological and Biographical.Cincinnati: Dabney, 1926. Drumsand Shadows: SurvivalStudies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes.Athens: U of Georgia P, 1940. Encyclopedia of Occultismand Parapsychology. 2nd ed. Detroit:Gale, 1984. Harris,Middleton,with MorrisLevitt,Roger Furman,and Ernest Smith. The Black Book. New York:Ran- dom, 1974. Holloway,KarlaF. C. 'Beloved: A Spiritual."Callaloo 13 (1990): 51 6-25. Man, Mythand Magic: The IllustratedEncyclopedia of Mythology,Religion and the Unknown.New York: Cavendish, 1983. THEHAUNTINGOF 124415 This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsMorrison,Toni. Beloved. New York:Knopt,1987. Stuckey, Sterling.Slave Culture:NationalistTheoryand the Foundations of BlackAmerica. New York:Ox- ford UP, 1987. Call for Papers WashingtonState Universitywillhost the graduate-studentconfer- ence"Theoretical Approachesto MarginalizedLiteratures" on March 26- 28,1993.Recent attention to emergingliterary discourseis generating muchattention to the critical toolsusedto studyheretoforemarginalized literatures. This graduate-studentconferencewillprovidea forum for the scholarlyexchangeof ideasconcerningthe applicationof both traditional and recent trends in literary, cultural, and ethnic studieson the following literatures: African American,AsianAmerican,NativeAmerican,Chi- cano, Gay and Lesbian, Nineteenth-CenturyWomen,and Postcolonial.In- terestedgraduate studentsshouldsubmit300-wordabstracts by 15 Decem- ber 1992 to: MarginalizedLiteratures Conference,EnglishDepartment, WashingtonState University,Pullman,WA 99163-5020, AUTN: Janelle Wilcox. 416 This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Thu, 5 Jun 2014 06:16:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions