Dear All,

Below are two lecture videos focused on the novel Sula by Toni Morrison.

The first video focuses on “the Bottom” and Shadrack’s PTSD as a WWI soldier. It is 15 mins long.

This second video focuses on Helene and Nel’s travel on the Jim Crow Train car and Black Girlhood studies:

Questions

Please answer ONE of the following questions in 2-3 sentences as a comment reply.

1. How does Toni Morrison in her writing, show us the ways Shadrack is both an outsider and a part of the community of the Bottom? Choose a passage and close read it to explain how her writing choices (imagery, metaphor, simile, or tone) show us Shadrack’s relationship to the town.
2. What is the unspeakable thought or action that crosses Eva’s mind when she says, “Uh uh. Nooo.”?
3. What does Nel mean when she says, “I am me”? What do the events in the train and Nel’s declaration tell us about her coming-of-age?
4. CHOOSE A SCENE TO CLOSE READ: How are they scenes of black girlhood, OR What do they tell us about black girlhood?
   • When  Ajax whispers “pigmeat”? What does he mean or what ideas, connotations, or ideas are evoked when he says the word as the girls walk into town?
   • When Sula cuts off the tip of her finger to scare the bullies off:
     •“Her aim was determined but inaccurate. She slashed off only the tip of her finger. The four boys stared open-mouthed at the wound and the scrap of flesh, like a button mushroom, curling in the cherry blood that ran into the corners of the slate.”
   • NOTE: you may want to check out the scholarship on Black girlhood studies as discussed by Crystal Lynn Webster linked here: https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2020/the-history-of-girlhood/the-history-of-black-girls-and-the-field-of-black-girlhood-studies-at-the-forefront-of-academic/

Dear All,

Below are my lecture videos on the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks. I am focusing on Brooks the week of July 3 and will discuss Sula by Toni Morrison in class on July 6. A separate post on Morrison will be posted for the week of July 10.

This first video focuses on Gwendolyn Brooks, the Chicago Renaissance, and the first stage of her poetry (approximately 15 mins):

This shorter video focuses on Gwendolyn Brook’s shift in political and aesthetic sensibilities in the late 1960s as a response to the rise of the Black Power Movement and the Black Arts movement (approximately 5 mins):

This video focuses on Gwendolyn Brooks’s composition of her most anthologized poem, “We Real Cool.”  The video features an commentary from Brooks on the poem followed by her reading of the pome, offering insight into the writer’s perspective  while directing our attention to the lives of young black men (approx 6 mins):

Questions for Comment Reply based on video lectures

1. Can you spot another couple of lines that seem both quotidian and universal in Gwendolyn Brooks’s “The Bean Eaters” or another poem?
2. What does “The Ballad of Rudolph Read” do that newspapers and media do not do regarding Chicago’s racialized housing restrictions? What might the poem express that the newspapers do not and perhaps cannot express?
3. What is it that “Dream,” “rent,” “feeding” a wife,” and “satisfying a man” are all in quotation marks? What do quotation marks around words tell us? And consider, if a poem is a speaker’s voice, why have quotation marks inside that speaker’s voice? (this is a question for interpretation and close reading. There is not one correct answer).
4. How does Brooks’s prosody or voice change after the Black Arts movement? What is her tone or feeling in her poems “Boy Breaking Glass” versus “The Bean Eaters?”
5. In “We Real Cool,” we glimpse the lives of young black men in the 1960s and 1970s. Why does Brooks attend to the lives of these men? What does she make us notice about them that we may not otherwise? (See the last video featuring Brooks’s interview and reading to answer this question.

In the first video below, I discuss Nella Larsen’s biography, some literary devices, passing, ambiguity, and queerness in the 1920s. This video is longer and has more content and only one question (15 mins):

This second video expands on the first, offering specific passages and asking you to apply concepts from the first (8 mins):

Below are questions for a comment reply. Choose ONE question and write a comment reply of at least 2-3 sentences.

NOTE: The Comment reply was originally due June 27 at the start of class, but I was late uploading the video lecture. It will now be due June 28 by the end of the day. However, if you post by June 27 at 11:00 am, you will get 1 point extra credit.

1. Can you spot a moment of free indirect discourse in the scene where Irene sees Clare staring at her and thinks Clara is a white woman scrutinizing her? What is it? What does the inner thought express, or what meaning does it bring to the scene
2. Can you spot a moment of free indirect discourse in the scene where Irene looks over Clare and admires her beauty? What might Irene’s gaze tell us about Irene? What might it tell us about Clare?
3. Why does Irene initially resent Gertrude’s presence at the “party”?
4. What is the effect of repetition and/or description of the body in Larsen’s depiction of Irene’s uncontrollable laughter after learning that Jack’s pet name for his wife Clare is “Nig”?
5. Open Question: What term or cultural practice discussed in the video helps you think about black womanhood and friendship in this novel? Why?

Related resources (from video lecture):

https://genius.com/Ma-rainey-prove-it-on-me-blues-lyrics

https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/collections/inthelife/history/lesbian-chic-20s

On Free Indirect Discourse

Dear All,

Below are two short videos focused on Mary Church Terrell and her unpublished short stories.

In the video below, I provide historical context on Radical Reconstruction (1865-1877), the Rise of Jim Crow, and Mary Church Terrell’s biography.

• Note I slightly misspeak when I describe Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). To be clear:“Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people. Rejecting Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Supreme Court ruled that a law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between white people and Black people was not unconstitutional. As a result, restrictive Jim Crow legislation and separate public accommodations based on race became commonplace” (https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson)

In the video below, I discuss the Jim Crow car and the allusion to boxer Jack Johnson in “Betsy’s Borrowed Baby”:

Below is a link to three slides on interiority and Passing (1929) by Nella Larsen

Slides on Passing (1929) by Nella Larsen for Comment Reply

Questions based on videos and readings for a Comment reply. Choose ONE and write a 2-3 sentence comment reply:

Questions for Video Lecture on Mary Church Terrell

1. In the first part of the first video, I cover the rise of Jim Crow after Emancipation. How might the trial of Plessy Versus Ferguson resonate with the plot and setting of “Betsy’s Borrow Baby”?
2. Mary Church Terrell was a “black clubwoman.” What did black clubwomen do during the post-reconstruction moment? How might this shape our reading of her fictional works?
3. What does writing accomplish when it isn’t published? (based on the video or your own reader response to Terrell’s unpublished work)? What does Terry’s unpublished writing help us understand about her historical moment or experience as a Black woman?
4. What does the Jim Crow car do to Black mobility and travel in “Betsy’s Borrowed Baby”?
5. How do Irene’s inner thoughts reflect her values?