The pivotal center, which influences all of my research, is a concentration on examining spaces within socially-constructed categories, whether within literature, popular culture and television, or current events.

Transnational "literacies" taught to black granddaughters by black grandmothers:

Putnam, Amanda. “This Was Your Testament to the Way that These Women Lived and Died and Lived Again.” Short Story Criticism, Volume 100. University of Michigan: Gale Group, forthcoming August, 2007.

Putnam, Amanda. “Mothering the Motherless: Portrayals of Alternative Mothering Practices within the Caribbean Diaspora.” Canadian Woman Studies: Women and the Black Diaspora 23.2 (2004): 118-123.

 Putnam, Amanda. “Braiding Memories: Resistant Storytelling within Mother-Daughter Communities in Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krik!” Journal of Haitian Studies 9.1 (2003): 52-65.

Much of my research focuses on the portrayals of black grandmothers and the multiple "literacies" they teach their granddaughters. Concentrating on texts by several transnational black women writers, I focus on the linear and nonlinear matrilineal legacies evident within them. Specifically, I am interested in the ways in which multiple forms of literacy, such as re-writing experience, empowering ancestors, and creating new cultural images, are used by the authors (and their characters) to empower black women. Linking ideas from women originating from diverse areas of the world, including Haiti, the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, the theories I employ tend to be transnational, suggesting that geographical boundaries do not constrain authors or thematic concerns. Some of primary texts I'm interested in are Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (United States), Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (United States), Merle Hodge’s Crick Crack, Monkey (Trinidad, Caribbean), Edwidge Danticat’s Kirk? Krak! (Haiti), and Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother (Antigua, Caribbean). Within this critical analysis, I use several secondary texts within black feminist criticism and postcolonial and cultural studies, such as texts by scholars like Carol Boyce Davies, Marlene Nourbese Philip, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and bell hooks. 

African American Popular Fiction

Putnam, Amanda. “Hot Combs, Curling Irons, and Contradictions: Portrayals of African American Women in Mid-1990’s Pop Fiction.”  Alizes, Revue Angliciste de La Reunion: Urban America in Black Women’s Fiction Ed. Corinne Duboin. 22 (2002): 35-54.

In 1992, Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale was published and almost overnight, it burst onto the best seller lists. McMillan presented contemporary African American women as highly educated, professional characters, focusing on modern problems African American women had in the 1990’s. Noticing the technique, other contemporary African American authors followed McMillan’s lead, continuing and furthering this new popular movement.

My essay explains several ways in which this new genre of popular fiction both strengthened and undermined stereotypes of contemporary African American women. Depicting the majority of female characters as highly professional and successful women, the authors explode negative stereotypes of race and gender, which have classified African American women as primarily domestic workers and in other low-paying, low-status positions. Unfortunately, these works also, at times, uphold demeaning stereotypes regarding American (white) beauty standards. In most cases, although successful within professional arenas, these female characters (and their authors) retain significant cultural issues concerning African American appearance and success.

Primetime Racism:

Putnam, Amanda. “Miranda Bailey: ‘the Nazi’ or Yet Another Mammy?” Grace Under Pressure: Grey’s Anatomy Uncovered. Eds. Cynthia Burkhead and Hillary Robson. Forthcoming summer 2008.

I just recently completed an essay for a collection focused on Miranda Bailey, the sole black female character from the hit television drama Grey's Anatomy. After initially introducing Bailey as a force to be reckoned with and as a resident surgeon at the top of her game in a position of power, the show has gradually diminished her character in problematic ways. In the third season, Bailey accepted professional blame for a (white) intern’s catastrophic and deadly mistake; she counseled other (white) doctors on their downwardly-spiraling marriages and low self-esteem; and she seemingly headed up the task force to bring back into the program a multi-millionaire (white) intern who totally screwed up--all the while her own personal life and professional goals became increasingly invisible. Unfortunately, Bailey is now displaying several characteristics of the traditional (and racist) Mammy character of film (appearance, personality, personal invisibility, and strangely self-sacrificing behavior). In a show where racial diversity (and racial “blindness,” if such a thing exists) has been promoted and proclaimed by its writers and critics, it’s painful to recognize one of the best black female characters in television history has already been compromised. It’s shameful to watch Bailey become Mammy.

Gendered Reality TV:

Putnam, Amanda. “Vote the Bitch Off!” Pop Perspectives. Ed. Laura Gray-Rosendale. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. 434-443.

“Vote the Bitch Off!” is the eyebrow-raising title of my first venture into writing about a television series (second to be published), but it is aptly named. In this essay, which will be published in Pop Perspectives, currently in press, I argue that female contestants on the reality game show Survivor must balance their competitive desire to win—the very reason they are on the show—with a stereotypically feminized persona in order to be successful. If they choose not to, they are likely to be voted “off the island” (and thus out of the game) when “bitchiness” becomes code for their confidence. Now in its umpteenth season (and having spawned a host of other reality shows), Survivor is entrenched on the small screen, and thus its analysis is valuable in understanding current cultural trends.

My first analysis of this show was published online in 2001 at M/C Reviews: "Surviv-ing Women: 'Bitches' Voted Off First."

Sex and Star Trek:

Putnam, Amanda. “Good Sex and Star Trek: Where Few Women Have Gone Before.” eros. usa: Essays on the Culture and Literature of Desire. Eds. Cheryl Alexander Malcolm and Jopi Nyman. Gdańsk, Poland: Gdańsk University Press, 2005. 171-86.

After admitting to watching more Star Trek seasons than the average person, I decided to write about the shows' implicit subjugation of female characters' sex lives. "Why," I wondered, "did Kirk and Riker always get to hook up, and the women never did?"

In this essay, I discuss the representation of female sexuality in each Star Trek series starting with the 1960’s original and ending with the most recent series, Enterprise. Comparing the changing (and often gendered) Star Fleet uniform as well as the sexual escapades of female characters, especially in contrast to their male counterparts, my essay argues that the female characters on Star Trek are severely limited in their portrayals, suggesting an absurdly outdated morality, especially within a genre expected to push boundaries of space and time.

I co-wrote, with my colleague and sister, Lucy Putnam (who is a museum archivist), an essay regarding symbolism of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This Memorial, dedicated to the victims and survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing in April, 1995, was unique for many reasons. The Oklahoma City National Memorial is unusual because of whom and to what it pays homage. Unlike other community-based memorials, this memorial reflected on a tragedy that crossed almost all personal categories, including race, gender, age, political beliefs, religion, occupation, physical ability, sexual orientation, as well as educational, socioeconomic, and marital status. In so doing, it needed to transcend the individual groups represented in these categories, eliminating cross-cultural barriers and allowing visitors to identify with the victims. The museum documents the multiple and far-reaching consequences of a politically-inspired terrorist act committed purposefully to maim and kill.

Our article focuses on the subjective social rhetoric of the memorial. Concerned about creating connections between visitors and victims, the Memorial Center discreetly changes the focus from individual victims and re-directs attention on the collective, minimizing personal attributes which might allow visitors to distance themselves from the victims. However, the Memorial Center may go too far to create these connections. As race, religious differences, and sexual orientation are minimized, even outright manipulated, a sense of historic erasure become increasingly possible. In doing so, the Memorial Center makes choices about respecting the diversity of those lives as well as creates ‘normative’ personas for those killed. This Memorial is peaceful and tranquil, but the consequence of these decisions is also disturbing, as the choices affect both the validity and veracity of the memorial itself.