Наслеђе 60 (2025) [113-123]
АУТОР(И) / AUTHOR(S): Tijana Z. Matović
DOI: 10.46793/NasKg2560.113M
САЖЕТАК /ABSTRACT:
Natasha Brown’s debut novel Assembly (2021) positions its black, female, British narrator at the intersection of colonial racial legacy, immigrant experience, class divides and exploitative (neo)liberal practices, insidious misogyny, and a tectonic shift introduced by a cancer diagnosis. This paper’s research methodology encompasses interpretations of the dynamics of power, modes of oppression, and structures of privilege within theories of intersectionality. Specifically, the “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” as defined by bell hooks provides a useful framework for understanding Brown’s (millennial) vignettes which recall fragments of memory and introspection. The novel’s interpretation reveals playgrounds of dehumanizing, indoctrinating gazes, of diversity rooted in tokenism, and of supposed equality based on the neoliberal view of the individual as autonomous and free, which hides a sterile, hierarchical paradigm that commodifies and suppresses dissenting voices. The purposefully unresolved polysemy of an “assembly”, which stands for a place of dissenting identifications, of performative ritual, and of the novelistic form itself is left to loom large over Brown’s narrative.
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
Natasha Brown, Assembly, English novel, intersectionality, colonial legacy, imperialism, misogyny, race
ЛИТЕРАТУРА/ REFERENCES:
- Brown 2022: N. Brown, Assembly, London: Penguin Books.
- Brown, Deleva 2021: N. Brown, N. Deleva, An Interview with Natasha Brown by Nataliya Deleva: On Her Debut Novel Assembly, EX/POST Magazine, <https:// www.expostmag.com/post/an-interview-with-natasha-brown-by-nataliya-deleva> 20.4.2024.
- Brown, McCrum 2023: N. Brown, A. McCrum, Natasha Brown on Assembly, <https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDpZfW0eAPE&t=2202s> 15.4.2024.
- Brown, Toll 2022: N. Brown, M.A. Toll, Writing with Fewer Limitations: The Millions Interviews Natasha Brown, The Millions, <https://themillions.com/2022/01/ writing-with-fewer-limitations-the-millions-interviews-natasha-brown. html> 20.4. 2024.
- Deleuze, Guattari 1983: G. Deleuze, F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by R. Hurley, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Deleuze, Guattari 1987: G. Deleuze, F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by B. Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- hooks 2002: b. hooks, Postmodern Blackness, in: Postmodernism and the Contemporary Novel: A Reader, B. Nicol (ed.), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 421–428.
- Lorde 1983: A. Lorde, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, in: This Bridge Called my Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, C. Moraga, G. Anzaldua (eds.), Watertown, Massachusetts: Persephone Press, 98–101.
- Yuval-Davis 2009: N. Yuval-Davis, Intersectionality and Feminist Politics, in: The Intersectional Approach: Transforming the Academy through Race, Class, and Gender, M.T. Berger, K. Guidroz (eds.), Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 44–60.