LITR 5731: Seminar in American Multicultural Literature

Web Highlight, fall 2007

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Web-Highlight (Research Projects): Patricia Dixon

Research projects (due 29 November)

 

Introduction: 

The research project is, for most students the most stressful event of the semester. However, the webpage with the model assignments of previous semesters is a helpful tool for help in formatting and organizing the research project.  There are this semester three options for the student:  The essay option, the journal option, and the proposal with an accompanying paper to be submitted for publication. All completed projects are due via email by November 29th. 

 

The first is the essay option: The paper's assigned length is the equivalent 12 to 20 pages, double-spaced—though it need not be double-spaced when you submit it.  Follow MLA documentation style. You are required to refer to at least three critical, theoretical, or historical (i. e., secondary) sources.  Your paper should center on one or two "primary texts"; usually the primary texts are drawn from the course’s readings, but you may propose an outside text.

The journal option: The purpose of the journal option is for the student to gain further knowledge in the field of Minority Literature or a related subject area.  Length: Approximately 15-20 pages, though longer submissions are acceptable. Content: Specific suggestions are given below, but overall the journal should demonstrate that you have, however briefly or tentatively, initiated research in several related subjects. Format for the journal includes an introduction and conclusion however, the other journal components are optional depending upon your topic. Suggestions are listed on the syllabus.

The proposal with paper for publication at a research conference is the newest option presented to us by Dr. White. This option is being considered and will be discussed in class tonight. Possible requirements are as follows: 1-2 page proposal for an identified conference, 7-10 page paper for presentation, 1-page report on two writing consultations-one with instructor (me) and another with Writing Center or some other mentor, and, finally, for content: same range or limits as essay or journal. Not limited to midterm subject.
 

Links to prior semester projects:

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/projects/projects06/default.htm
 
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/projects/proj04/default.htm
 
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/projects/projects03/default.htm
 
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/projects/projects01/default.htm

 

Example One: The Essay Option

Kimberly Dru Pritchard

April 27, 2006

The Alternative Community as a Redefinition of the Traditional

in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon

               As the era of slavery dawned in the United States, countless members of the African community involuntarily entered a country as foreign in topography as it was in sociology, leaving behind a society rich in tradition, culture, and custom. Voiceless and choiceless, African communities disbanded, and their cultural and historical identity vanished. Prior to the African’s forced arrival into this country, their lives followed traditional communal patterns of established order, convention and ritual. However, as slaves, their communities disappeared, and families, scattered like chattel across the South, ceased to function in the traditional patriarchal pattern. Andrew Billingsley, author of Black Families in White America, states that “the Negro slaves were converted from the free, independent human beings they had been in Africa, to property.  This process of dehumanization started at the beginning of the slave-gathering process and was intensified with each stage along the way” (49).

Even after the Civil War freed these men and women of enslavement, the “new Americans,” found themselves bereft not only of their native land but of their family, home, and community.  To say that the African American community struggled through a rebirth and reformation following the Civil War would indeed be an understatement.  Heretofore living a life of impermanence and oppression, the newly freed slaves were now forced into a society rife with prejudice and racism.  Their sense of community shattered, the freed men and women began the difficult task of rebuilding not only their individual identities but their cultural heritage as well. . . .

 

James R. Hood

2 December 2004

Loss and Survival:
Exploring the Minority Narrative of Resistance and Assimilation

               While the origins of each of this country’s minority groups differs from those of others, most of these peoples share a similar experience of loss and survival in their stories of resistance to and assimilation into the mainstream of American culture. Each group suffers losses of one form or another, yet each manages to “survive” those losses—at least to some extent, it seems—in becoming part of the overall picture of American culture. In particular, the African-American, Native American, and Mexican-American minority narratives reflect these stories of loss and survival, and this essay will attempt to compare and contrast those elements in hopes of placing each within the context of American culture as it stands today.

            The African-American minority narrative is unlike that of either the Native Americans or Mexican-Americans, since the origins of the latter two groups are believed to have been rooted in the Americas rather than other continents. The significance of that fact implies that the African-American narrative begins elsewhere, and literature such as The Life of Olaudah Equiano gives an account of how the African-American minority narrative began on the “dark continent” of Africa.

            Writing as Gustavus Vassa, Olaudah Equiano describes growing up in his African village while living in constant fear of being kidnapped. As if the threat of being taken while one’s parents were out gathering food were not enough, it seems that even village chiefs were not above bartering away the lives of some of the villagers for goods offered by the slave traders, so even the adult members of the village were at risk as well. Equiano and his sister are taken by traders, and while his description of the loss of his family and home is moving, it pales with his tale of surviving the “middle passage” on the slave ship. . . .

Example Two: The Journal Option

Ginger Hilton
Dr. Craig White
LITR5731
May 3, 2003

African American: Crisis in Identity

In “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” the first chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk, the identity crisis of African Americans is described as a culture torn between two worlds and strangled by the division of self:

…the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, - a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness...One ever feels his two-ness,-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

              The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,-this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. (McKelly 1)

The purpose of my journal is to explore the “two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (1) to trace the footsteps along the path of  “self-conscious manhood” (1) and witness the merging of the African who is also American into the double self-identity of African American. I want to recognize if there is any reconciliation happening in their “unreconciled strivings” (1) and recognize both the evolvement and involvement of their voice. Although a depth of conflicting identities - ranging from passive acceptance to militant defiance - span the psychological framework of the African American writer, the voice grows louder with every poem published, every book written, and every speech heard. What are their messages?

This journal will not only trace some of the integral layers that empower the "message for the world" (1) but also clarify the purpose and scope of their message: is it one of emergence "into his double self" (1), or is it one of separation, or is it a combination of both? With that in mind, my journal will focus on the emerging African American identity from the Harlem Renaissance period through the Civil Rights Movement: 1919 through 1969. Over this fifty-year period, I hope to mirror the duality of the African American vision, to recognize their protest against "being cursed and spit upon by his fellows…[and] having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face" (1) and to honor their dream of "longing to attain self-conscious manhood" (1).

Like Langston Hughes’ poem “A Dream Deferred,” the duality of the African American identity remains deferred: “Maybe it just sags / like a heavy load. / Or does it explode?” (Heffernan 596). Hughes’ dream for identity “sags” (596) with the stifled and “heavy load” (596) of the dominant society’s culture imposed upon them, while the subdued, separate, African-based, history-bound identity – what was sometimes referred to as the “New Negro” – has the potential to “explode” (596) like a bomb. Hughes poses the question “What happens to a dream deferred?” (596) in an effort to define the African American. In other words, “Who is he? Is he a product of enculturization, or is his identity exploding into a new self?”

The duplexity of the African American are like two worlds colliding: one world revolves around history and the other world spins out of control, unformed, unshaped by “unreconciled strivings” (McKelly 1) – still forming and still shaping – that someday might perpetuate a valid oneness. In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. said “I have a dream that one day…” (Barksdale 872) meaning that day is yet to come. Likewise, the University of Georgia Press states 38 years later how the “civil rights movement continues its positive influences on people’s lives, but…has not yet been fully realized” (University 1). Again, that day is yet to come. Another echoing of yet to come is in the poem “Birmingham Sunday: (September 15, 1963)” by Langston Hughes in which he states: “Four little girls / Might be awakened someday soon / By songs upon the breeze / As yet unfelt among / Magnolia trees” (Hughes 200). The terms “might be” (201), “someday soon” (201), and “yet unfelt” (201) denote uncertain possibilities. . . .

 

Linda M. Harvey
LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
Dr. Craig White
December 4, 2001

Journal: The Emergence of Voice in Mexican American Literature

As I begin this research project I’d like to focus my energies on the emergence of voice through the works of Mexican American authors. In looking into this topic, I want to explore two of the major course objectives. The first objective is 1b – "Voiceless and choiceless." I want to show how Mexican American authors are telling the stories and giving voice to cultures with which the dominant culture may not be familiar. The second objective, which ties into linking voice to literature, is Objective 5 – to study the influence of minority writers and speakers on literature, literacy, and language. As I develop this theme of linking voice to literature, I’d like to narrow my focus to include Objective 5a – to discover the power of poetry and fiction to help "others" hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience. However, I’d like to begin this project with a broad scope and see where my research takes me. I’d like to try to keep this journal in somewhat of a "journal" format, and I hope to convey my thought processes within these pages.

My first stop in my search for authors giving voice to the voiceless is to bring up Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek. I feel this is a logical place to begin my research. Mango Street is a story, told in a series of vignettes, about a young girl growing up in inner city Chicago. The book is full of rich imagery, symbolism, and ambivalence. One chapter in particular beautifully illustrates my point. At the end of the chapter titled, "Boys & Girls," Esperanza expresses one of her desires. "Someday I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them. Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor" (Cisneros 9). As I read the book, I felt as if I were experiencing young Esperanza Cordero’s trials and tribulations with her. I felt as if I could hear Esperanza’s voice. Cisneros does a wonderful job giving readers a glimpse into the life of the main character. The final lines of the book show that with voice, individuals are able to make choices, choices that will eventually help others. "They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out" (Cisneros 110). . . .

Conclusion:

I chose a variety of different essay and journal options to review because I wanted to see the diversity and range of the topics covered.  Also, I wanted to see how different people structured their journals since I am uncertain whether my topic lends itself more to a journal or an essay style of paper.  I tend to think that the former may be the more appropriate structure.  I chose the James Hood essay because I want to link some of his points into my argument.  I enjoyed reading a lot of the essays and journals and I found that it was helpful to find points in favor of and opposing my stance for my paper.  It also gave me additional sources in the bibliography section from which to draw information either in support of or opposition to my argument.  I found this process helpful and enjoyable.