This thesis examines the FBI's surveillance of Alice Childress, a twentieth-century artist, writer, and Communist. A close reading of Childress's radical and censored literary work reveals the nature and extent of her critique of the U.S. racial order. Turning an eye to the FBI, I trace the Bureau's development under J. Edgar Hoover into a surveillant force. I draw on Childress's FBI file in order to argue that the Bureau was motivated ideologically by an allegiance to the existing socio-racial order. The FBI's rhetoric of threats to national security was employed in reference to progressive ideas, which reflects the Bureau's commitment to the preservation of hierarchy. Given the FBI's ideological pursuits, the thesis is also a study of the way that invisibility and hypervisibility operated in tandem under the FBI's surveillant framework. While Childress was overlooked as an artist, she was also scrutinized very closely by the federal government. Ultimately, I argue that surveillant practice served the purpose of allowing the Bureau to control its image and predict criticism. By turning the tables on her scrutiny, Childress staged a literary and ideological intervention into federal surveillance.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["Surveillance","Narrative","Censorship"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 28237