HW for Feb 23: Carlos Bullosan, "Silence" (194?)

 

Choose either one of the following suggestions for analysis:

1. Write a close-reading textual analysis of the excerpt from "Silence" that starts in the middle of the second paragraph, "He would lie in bed, eyes opened" until the end of the first sentence of the last paragraph ("pulled frantically at the curtains and ran out of the room") - anthology pp. 17-18

2. Do you think the literary practice of Carlos Bulosan contrasts or agrees with what Mukherjee advocates in "Give us your Maximalists"? (anthology, pp. 8-11)

The New Colossus (poem context)

 The Rhodes Colossus (as imagined, from the III century BCE):

See here about the plans to build a New Colossus of Rhodes. And here, of course, the Statue of Liberty whose dedication (it was offered by the French) in 1886 counted with the "collaboration" of Emma Lazarus's poem, written in 1883.

"A ti, prolífica, enorme, dominadora. A ti, Nuestra Señora de la Libertad. A ti, cuyas mamas de bronce alimentan un sinnúmero de almas y corazones, A ti, que te alzas solitaria y magnífica sobre tu isla, levantando la divina antorcha. Yo te saludo al paso de mi steamer, prosternándome delante de tu majestad. ¡Ave: Good morning! Yo sé, divino icono, ¡oh, magna estatua!, que tu solo nombre, el de la excelsa beldad que encarnas, ha hecho brotar estrellas sobre el mundo, a la manera del fiat del Señor. Allí están entre todas, brillantes sobre las listas de la bandera, las que iluminan el vuelo del águila de América, de esta tu América formidable, de ojos azules. Ave, Libertad, llena de fuerza; el Señor es contigo: bendita tú eres. Pero, ¿sabes?, se te ha herido mucho por el mundo, divinidad, manchando tu esplendor. Anda en la tierra otra que ha usurpado tu nombre, y que, en vez de la antorcha, lleva la tea. Aquélla no es la Diana sagrada de las incomparables flechas: es Hécate."

Rubén Dario, "Edgar Allan Poe," Los Raros (1896)

Welcome... and homework for February 11

 1. Choose a favorite theme from the album "The Living Road" by Lhasa de Sela, and comment why you like it and how you find it related to the concept of "diaspora" as discussed by Brent Hayes Edwards in the first pages of our anthology.

HW for April 18

Choose either (or both):

1. Do some research about the musical genre of blues and extrapolate on what it meant for Langston Hughes to transfer this form into his modernist poetry.

 

2. Offer a close reading either of “Madam’s Calling Cards” or “Madam’s Past History” (pp. 80—81)

100 Years of African American Affirmation in the US - an overview

 1859-65 - Civil War, Slavery Abolished

1870 - 15th Amendment: African American men are granted the right to vote (women would only earn it in the19th Amendment of 1920).

HOWEVER, the conditions to be eligible for voting (ballot-toll, literacy, etc) prevented in practice the majority of Afro-Americans from casting their votes.  Also in the South active seggregation was enforced through the so-called Jim Crow laws from 1876 to 1965.

1910 - Foundation of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with the monthly magazine Crisis 

1914 - Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), whose motto is 'One God, One Aim, One Destiny'. 

1919 - W. E. B. Dubois organizes de Pan-African Congress in Paris

1920-1933 - Prohibition 

1920's: the jazz wave hits Beale Street (Memphis Blues: Armstrong, Muddie Waters, Albert King...)
 1921 - Langston Hughes enrolls in Columbia Univ (will leave one year later on account of racial prejudice) and publishes  "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" in Crisis.

1920's: emergência da onda do jazz na Beale Street (Memphis Blues: Armstrong, Muddie Waters, Albert King...)

1922 - Publication of the anthology The Book of American Negro Poetry.

1924 - Countee Cullen wins the Witter Bynner Poetry Competition

1925 - Anthology The New Negro (ed. Alain Locke), with Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston. consecrates the Harlem Renaissance.

1930 - Foundation of the Nation of Islam, associated with Black Nationalism

1934 - Elijah Muhammad directs the Nation of Islam. 

1937 - Zora Neale Hurston publishes Their Eyes Were Watching God.

1952 - Malcolm X earns parole from prison and quickly rises to become one of the Nation of Islam's most influential leaders

1954 - Brown v. Board decision declares segregation in public schools illegal. However, desegregation was not a peaceful choice (neither for whites nor blacks, since the former preferred racial balance to open social arrangements of where to study, work, live, etc.)

1955- The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins on December 5 after Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the bus.

1957- The Southern Christian Leadership Conference establishes and adopts nonviolent mass action as its cornerstone strategy to gain civil rights and opportunities for blacks. Working initially in the South under the leadership of Martin Luther King, by the mid 1960's King enlarges the organization's focus to address racism in the North.

1963 - March to Washington and "I have a dream" speech.

1963 (Nov. 22) - John Kennedy is assassinated.

1964, Apr. 3 - Malcolm X delivers "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech, after having parted with the Nation of Islam, but still defending separatism rather than integration.

1964, July2 - Civil Rights Act (Lindy Johnson) - civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin

1965 - On February, Malcolm X is assassinated. On March, blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march is considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later. 

1968 - Martin Luther King is murdered.

HW for April 14: Toni Morison, "Recitatif"

 Please comment here on character description, race, class, stereotypes, expectations, assumptions, and whatever else you find meaningful

HW For March 21st (poetry day!)

 Answer this question fully or partially:

Bearing in mind the categories that Steve Mentz proposes in order to "deterritorialize" our academic humanities (anthology pp. 190-123), which of them do you think applies to the excerpt of Anderson's Azorean Suite and how? ; or do you see Anderson's writing as fitting in bettwer with the following precepts of Gary Snyder's "Unnatural Wriring"?