Abstract Although a number of scholars have tackled the figure of the Black folk-healer in Toni M... more Abstract Although a number of scholars have tackled the figure of the Black folk-healer in Toni Morrison’s novels, the character deserves greater attention in the present moment for the insights she provides into two contemporary catastrophes: the coronavirus pandemic and the structural racism that precipitates rampant violence against brown-skinned people in the United States. Beginning with M’Dear, the elderly woman who is brought in to treat Cholly’s Aunt Jimmy in The Bluest Eye (1970), I survey descriptions of several root workers, hoodoo practitioners, and midwives in Morrison’s fiction, including Ajax’s mother in Sula (1973) and Milkman’s aunt Pilate in Song of Solomon (1977). Morrison’s portraits of these women and their communities capture the endurance of African folk customs, the undervalued knowledge of aged members of society, and a sense of Black women’s strength beyond that of the physical, laboring, or hypersexual body. The fictional experiences of Morrison’s healers also alert readers to the very real injustices that have historically impeded the successes of African Americans—and continue to hamper them, as has been exposed during the COVID-19 crisis and public outrages over police brutality. These injustices include inequities in lifelong earning potential, education, housing, and access to healthcare. Paying closer attention to the Nobel Laureate’s root-working women makes her novels more than simply “transformative” and “empowering” for individual readers; analyzing these figures allows one to unearth important critiques of medical bias and other forms of discrimination against marginalized members of society—disparities that must be dismantled in the push for social change.
... of sexual trauma brings to mind more canonical African American novels like Gayl Jones's... more ... of sexual trauma brings to mind more canonical African American novels like Gayl Jones's Corregidora (1975) and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987 ... P-3i-i. Many Americans, for example, do not realize that NBA stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Patrick Ewing, Congresswoman ...
Like African American women, African Caribbean women have been influenced by their migratory expe... more Like African American women, African Caribbean women have been influenced by their migratory experiences--both forced and voluntary--and by slavery\u27s staggering brutality. In addition, however, they have also been profoundly shaped by the colonial system and regional nationalist movements that burgeoned in the twentieth century. Throughout the history of territorial acquisitions, European imperial powers linked themselves to the image of motherhood by referring to their nations as mother country. In the early twentieth century, Caribbean revolutionaries decried this ideology and recast the maternal image by adopting the notion of their islands as motherlands and/or urging for reconnections to Mother Africa. My dissertation is concerned with how motherhood as a material fact has been lost through this ideological contestation. I argue that despite the fact that motherhood is incorporated into the everyday lives of most Caribbean women, women writers cannot easily dissociate their own representations of motherhood from the colonial and patriarchal overlay. The result is a literature burdened by the fragmentation of the relationships between mothers and their children. I explore the fraught notion of inescapable bonds to mothers, including the romanticized bonds to the motherlands of Africa and the Caribbean islands
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga situates itself within a tradition of vampire narratives, or a “v... more Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga situates itself within a tradition of vampire narratives, or a “vampire canon,” constituted by a wide range of texts including novels like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and films like the South Korean Thirst (2009). Meyer’s series consequently invites comparisons to the existing body of work, while creating its own disruptions and possibilities within that larger body. In this chapter, we trace some of the racial and ethnic discourses in the Twilight series. We will demonstrate how, much like Stoker’s Jonathan Harker, Isabella Swan operates as a type of ethnographer—she is almost scientific in her observations of the vampire and werewolf cultures in which she finds herself immersed, and she is compelled by the Pacific Northwest like Harker is drawn into the mysterious “East”—both of which are problematically rendered as nearly mystical, especially in the depiction of Native/native peoples.
Images in film, paintings, sketches, and sculpture sometimes drive ideas home in ways that words ... more Images in film, paintings, sketches, and sculpture sometimes drive ideas home in ways that words on the page do not, prompting more visceral reactions and the desire to enact change instead of thinking about subjects on a more abstract level. This essay explores how the visual arts were used in a Fall 2020 course on Afrofuturist literature to supplement conventional readings, class discussions, and writing assignments, helping students to grasp many of the central principles of genre, such as re-visioning reality and undermining the “logics” established by colonial regimes, neo-colonial powers, and systemic racism; the ways that the past permeates the present; the possibilities of Africanist existence in a rich and productive future; how intersections of race, gender, and class influence artists' reconfigurations of artistic forms long dominated by White men. Several creative research projects, produced by students at the end of the semester, are described at length and analyzed...
Page 1. • _ Reading Harry Potter CRITICALESSAYS Edited by :lle Liza Anato' . r • Page 2. REA... more Page 1. • _ Reading Harry Potter CRITICALESSAYS Edited by :lle Liza Anato' . r • Page 2. READING HARRY POTTER Thi s O ne F1BE-399-9DBC Page 3. ...
Abstract Although a number of scholars have tackled the figure of the Black folk-healer in Toni M... more Abstract Although a number of scholars have tackled the figure of the Black folk-healer in Toni Morrison’s novels, the character deserves greater attention in the present moment for the insights she provides into two contemporary catastrophes: the coronavirus pandemic and the structural racism that precipitates rampant violence against brown-skinned people in the United States. Beginning with M’Dear, the elderly woman who is brought in to treat Cholly’s Aunt Jimmy in The Bluest Eye (1970), I survey descriptions of several root workers, hoodoo practitioners, and midwives in Morrison’s fiction, including Ajax’s mother in Sula (1973) and Milkman’s aunt Pilate in Song of Solomon (1977). Morrison’s portraits of these women and their communities capture the endurance of African folk customs, the undervalued knowledge of aged members of society, and a sense of Black women’s strength beyond that of the physical, laboring, or hypersexual body. The fictional experiences of Morrison’s healers also alert readers to the very real injustices that have historically impeded the successes of African Americans—and continue to hamper them, as has been exposed during the COVID-19 crisis and public outrages over police brutality. These injustices include inequities in lifelong earning potential, education, housing, and access to healthcare. Paying closer attention to the Nobel Laureate’s root-working women makes her novels more than simply “transformative” and “empowering” for individual readers; analyzing these figures allows one to unearth important critiques of medical bias and other forms of discrimination against marginalized members of society—disparities that must be dismantled in the push for social change.
... of sexual trauma brings to mind more canonical African American novels like Gayl Jones's... more ... of sexual trauma brings to mind more canonical African American novels like Gayl Jones's Corregidora (1975) and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987 ... P-3i-i. Many Americans, for example, do not realize that NBA stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Patrick Ewing, Congresswoman ...
Like African American women, African Caribbean women have been influenced by their migratory expe... more Like African American women, African Caribbean women have been influenced by their migratory experiences--both forced and voluntary--and by slavery\u27s staggering brutality. In addition, however, they have also been profoundly shaped by the colonial system and regional nationalist movements that burgeoned in the twentieth century. Throughout the history of territorial acquisitions, European imperial powers linked themselves to the image of motherhood by referring to their nations as mother country. In the early twentieth century, Caribbean revolutionaries decried this ideology and recast the maternal image by adopting the notion of their islands as motherlands and/or urging for reconnections to Mother Africa. My dissertation is concerned with how motherhood as a material fact has been lost through this ideological contestation. I argue that despite the fact that motherhood is incorporated into the everyday lives of most Caribbean women, women writers cannot easily dissociate their own representations of motherhood from the colonial and patriarchal overlay. The result is a literature burdened by the fragmentation of the relationships between mothers and their children. I explore the fraught notion of inescapable bonds to mothers, including the romanticized bonds to the motherlands of Africa and the Caribbean islands
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga situates itself within a tradition of vampire narratives, or a “v... more Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga situates itself within a tradition of vampire narratives, or a “vampire canon,” constituted by a wide range of texts including novels like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and films like the South Korean Thirst (2009). Meyer’s series consequently invites comparisons to the existing body of work, while creating its own disruptions and possibilities within that larger body. In this chapter, we trace some of the racial and ethnic discourses in the Twilight series. We will demonstrate how, much like Stoker’s Jonathan Harker, Isabella Swan operates as a type of ethnographer—she is almost scientific in her observations of the vampire and werewolf cultures in which she finds herself immersed, and she is compelled by the Pacific Northwest like Harker is drawn into the mysterious “East”—both of which are problematically rendered as nearly mystical, especially in the depiction of Native/native peoples.
Images in film, paintings, sketches, and sculpture sometimes drive ideas home in ways that words ... more Images in film, paintings, sketches, and sculpture sometimes drive ideas home in ways that words on the page do not, prompting more visceral reactions and the desire to enact change instead of thinking about subjects on a more abstract level. This essay explores how the visual arts were used in a Fall 2020 course on Afrofuturist literature to supplement conventional readings, class discussions, and writing assignments, helping students to grasp many of the central principles of genre, such as re-visioning reality and undermining the “logics” established by colonial regimes, neo-colonial powers, and systemic racism; the ways that the past permeates the present; the possibilities of Africanist existence in a rich and productive future; how intersections of race, gender, and class influence artists' reconfigurations of artistic forms long dominated by White men. Several creative research projects, produced by students at the end of the semester, are described at length and analyzed...
Page 1. • _ Reading Harry Potter CRITICALESSAYS Edited by :lle Liza Anato' . r • Page 2. REA... more Page 1. • _ Reading Harry Potter CRITICALESSAYS Edited by :lle Liza Anato' . r • Page 2. READING HARRY POTTER Thi s O ne F1BE-399-9DBC Page 3. ...
This book explores images of vampirism in Caribbean and African diasporic folk traditions and in ... more This book explores images of vampirism in Caribbean and African diasporic folk traditions and in contemporary fiction. I focus on the figure of the soucouyant (sometimes called loogaroo, or Old Hag)—an aged woman by day who sheds her skin at night, turns into a ball of fire, and flies about her community in order to suck the blood of her unwitting victims. In contrast to the glitz, glamour, and seductiveness of conventional depictions of the European vampire, the soucouyant triggers unease about old age and female power. Tracing relevant folklore through the English- and French-speaking Caribbean, the U.S. Deep South, and parts of West Africa, I show how tales of the nocturnal female bloodsuckers not only entertain and encourage obedience in pre-adolescent listeners, but also work to instill particular values about women’s “proper” place and behaviors in society at large.
Marc Aronson's book explores his interests in cultural diversity, U.S. history, and publishing fo... more Marc Aronson's book explores his interests in cultural diversity, U.S. history, and publishing for a young adult (YA) audience. The author makes impressive efforts to foster dialogue and wrestle with topics that are so often taboo--racism and race-based selection procedures, religious fundamentalism, problems with the publishing industry. He asks many important questions, especially when it comes to his forte, YA literary production, and makes valuable suggestions about changes he would like to see that might rectify the limited worldview that has been offered to children.
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