This panel interrogates the formal and aesthetic evasions of Black texts and authors in response to the overt and obfuscated grammars of white supremacy. We welcome 250-word abstracts that explore the ways that Black writers enable or restrict the visibility of white supremacist and/or neoliberal grammars of language and grammars of living. Hidden in the etymology of the word grammar is “glamour,” suggesting the enchantment of an optical illusion. And yet, grammar is the architecture that unconsciously structures language and thought, creating the very conventions and norms that dictate how the world should be.

In what ways do regimes of control, like white supremacy and neoliberalism, mobilize grammar to mediate access to power and agency? How do texts by Black writers—or the reception of these texts—grant or limit readers’ access to what remains (in)visible as grammar?

Please send abstracts to diana.molina@rutgers.edu and sziner@english.rutgers.edu by March 29.