CRITICAL FABULATION: SOUNDING THE SILENCE OF BURNED ARCHIVE

Authors

  • Daniel Tia Department of English, American Studies, University of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
  • Koko Akissi Thérèse D’Avila Kouassi Felix Houphouet-Boigny National Polytechnic Institute, American Studies, Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejls.v7i1.723

Keywords:

performance, somatic memory, epistemic justice, aural repertoire, historiographical erasure

Abstract

The inquiry into the archive in an age of epistemic anxiety requires a radical ontological shift from the petrified document to the fluidities of the somatic repertoire. This research interrogates the burned archive, a site of spectral absence where the written trace has been systematically immolated by colonial and patriarchal hegemony, by situating the crisis of historical evidence within the liminal spaces of the African Diaspora. In this vein, the current study engages with the visceral textures of Gayl Jones’s Corregidora and the archival interrogations of Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, two seminal works that navigate the aporia of the unrecorded. While Jones explores the transgenerational transmission of trauma through the blues-voice as a vessel for history when the physical record is reduced to ash, Hartman navigates the state’s forensic remains to reclaim the subversive vitality of those rendered as mere data points. Although scholarship has extensively parsed these texts through lenses of trauma and intersectionality, a profound methodological lacuna remains regarding the specific mechanics of the aural trace as a rigorous historical foundation. This exegesis postulates that the epistemic anxiety of the present can only be resolved by acknowledging the song and the wayward gesture as legitimate archival deposits. Accordingly, the main interrogation that emerges is: How does the synthesis of critical fabulation and the aural repertoire reformulate the archive as a site of ontological resistance rather than a monument to erasure? To address this, the current analytical proposes to bridge the silences of the state record through disciplined imagination and narrative reconstruction. To do so, a comparative methodological framework anchored in critical fabulation is essential. This cross-textual instrument will contribute to examining the issues of historiographical recovery and somatic memory. Despite these significant roles, this method must be cautiously applied, as it risks the ethical peril of over-ventriloquizing the subaltern subject and blurring the boundary between empirical fact and speculative recovery. Consequently, this project unfolds across two analytical trajectories: Anatomy of Archival Violence and Resonance of the Repertoire.

Author Biographies

  • Daniel Tia, Department of English, American Studies, University of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire

    Daniel Tia holds a degree from the University of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on Paule Marshall’s fictional works. His research focuses on postmodern/postcolonial issues, identity construction, gender, immigration, subjective space, and transgression. He teaches American literature at the aforementioned institution and is a member of the Laboratory of Literatures and Writings of Civilizations (LLITEC).

  • Koko Akissi Thérèse D’Avila Kouassi, Felix Houphouet-Boigny National Polytechnic Institute, American Studies, Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire

    Koko Akissi Thérèse D’Avila Kouassi is a graduate of the University of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, where she conducted her doctoral dissertation on female representation and writing in Gloria Naylor’s fictional works. Currently working at the Félix Houphouët-Boigny National Polytechnic Institute, her research focuses on gender, identity construction, and memory.

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Published

2026-07-23

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2026)

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Articles

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