Burning the School: Reading Movement as a Way of Reading the Minor in American Archives

• In Event: Child Pedagogues of Dissent: Reading the Lessons of Young People in Literature and Performance

Abstract

This paper juxtaposes the historical depiction of childish movement in the accounts of abolitionist Myrtilla Miner and the autobiographically-influenced literary depictions of unruly childish movement in Harriet Wilson’s 1859 Our Nig. In particular I focus on the black bodily movements mentioned as problem in Miner’s correspondences and the mulatta child Frado’s pranks in Wilson’s text. Part of a larger exploration of the fugitive performance of unruly minors in antebellum narratives, I first read these childish physical movements as performances that signify in excess of the narrative language that indexes them. I then ask us to reread Miner’s depictions of her students’ movements through the lens of Frado’s prank. For when read this way, the black gestures that show up only as problem within the purview of the white school master’s official record can be considered as a potential site of embodied sociality, mutual care, and black resistance.

Author

• Allison S. Curseen, Baruch College (CUNY)