Abstract
When the science fiction and fantasy novel The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin won the Hugo Award in 2016, Jemisin became the first Black author to win the prestigious literary science fiction award. A departure from similar novels at the time, The Fifth Season has a strong understanding of systems of oppression and how they are built and upheld. This thesis argues that The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin follows the conventions of the neo-slave/meta-slave narrative to explore themes of racialization and reproductive control under enslavement and oppression. I conduct a feminist literary of the novel, focusing on these themes, and ground my analysis firmly in Black feminist thought and the study of Black science fiction. Using authors such as Dorothy E. Roberts and Angela Y. Davis, I explore the ways in which Black women in America had their reproduction controlled for dehumanization and profit, as well as how they resisted such control. Using this historical context to read The Fifth Season, I demonstrate how Jemisin’s neo-/meta-slave narrative incorporates these themes of reproductive control and racialization, using the genre of science fiction to re-discover and re-imagine the personal experiences of enslaved women lost to history.
Advisor
Laura Harrison
Committee Member
Jill Cooley
Committee Member
Danielle Haque
Date of Degree
2024
Language
english
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Program of Study
Gender & Women's Studies
Department
History and Gender Studies
College
Humanities and Social Sciences
Recommended Citation
Sanders, Elsbeth. (2024). “Even the hardest stone can fracture:” Racialization, Reproductive Control, and the Wake of Slavery in N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/1460/
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