Museumizing Slavery: Living History in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad

Abstract This essay examines Colson Whitehead’s novel in relation to the museumizing of slavery that has gained momentum since the 1990s, focusing in particular on the Living History exhibition practice in which the Underground Railroad has played a vital part. Taking as my point of departure Whitehead’s signature move of building narrative worlds based on the logic of literalizing metaphor, I argue that his literal rendering of the Underground Railroad casts the novel as a grotesque tour of the US racial history. Structured as a train ride that transports readers to different historical sites, the novel at once stages and travesties the Living History practice of materializing the past in all its concrete particularity. I argue that Whitehead’s literalizing move also deviates from earlier literary efforts to stage a visceral, affective confrontation with the history of slavery. Responding to the heightened visibility rather than the absence of slavery from public memory, the novel casts into bold relief the historical frameworks (of American freedom stories and up-from-slavery narratives of racial advancement), pedagogical aims (of racial reconciliation and pluralist inclusion), and aesthetic strategies (of affective identification and cathartic confrontation) at play in current commemorations and exhibitions of slavery.