The Sweetness of Race
On Synesthesia, Addiction, and Self-Possessed Personhood in Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9590458 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sunhay You (0000-0003-0241-0858, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 95 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 513-537 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Literature (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9831 • E-ISSN: 1527-2117 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00029831-10679237 |
| OpenAlex | W4367310408 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
“The Sweetness of Race” examines the sensorial effects of lexical-gustatory synesthesia in Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth (2010). In this documentation of how words taste, whiteness becomes associated with the taste of sugar and its addictive properties. Throughout the novel, whiteness becomes legible as an object of addiction that defends against the failed ideals of self-possessed human personhood—a cornerstone to white supremacy. The novel then reveals opportunities to reorganize the senses and ideas of personhood as a means to disrupt particularly harmful appetites for racialized intimacies
Aesthetics · Art · Cornerstone · Epistemology · Perception · Personhood · Race (biology) · Sociology · Sweetness · Synesthesia · Taste · Visual arts · Gender Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Humor Studies and Applications · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
|---|