Current Search: American literature -- African American authors (x)
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- Title
- RADICAL RETICENCE: QUIETNESS, VISION, AND RESISTANCE IN CONTEMPORARY REPRESENTATIONS OF SLAVERY.
- Creator
- McGeary, Stephen A., Dagbovie-Mullins, Sika, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
-
Throughout the 21st century, some artists, athletes, and politicians began to use their platforms to speak out against the issues of systemic racism and police brutality that continue to affect black Americans to this day. While this outpouring of support for the black community has helped move the needle in terms of equity and inclusion initiatives, critics have often labeled these figures and movements too public or loud, conflating the concepts of talking and loudness with resistance to...
Show moreThroughout the 21st century, some artists, athletes, and politicians began to use their platforms to speak out against the issues of systemic racism and police brutality that continue to affect black Americans to this day. While this outpouring of support for the black community has helped move the needle in terms of equity and inclusion initiatives, critics have often labeled these figures and movements too public or loud, conflating the concepts of talking and loudness with resistance to the status quo. Yet, in an era when “silence is not an option” and “quietness is complicity,” African American authors and artists have taken a subtle and quiet approach to depicting the lives of enslaved men and women. More specifically, novels, films, and art from the past two decades portray resistance as not only a public and physical phenomenon, but a mental and ideological one. This dissertation project comes at the intersection of African American literary, religious, and historical studies to argue that quiet and internal acts, such as surrender, memory, and visions, throughout contemporary representations of slavery provide an effective form of resistance to white hegemonic authority, ideology, and values. It asks readers to look beyond the public and the loud, to think about resistance that is not merely physical, to consider the possibilities present in reticence.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013935
- Subject Headings
- African-American studies, Slave narratives, American literature--African American authors
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Sentimental spirits: saving the soul while seizing the heart and swaying the mind.
- Creator
- Rovere, Michelle, Bradford, Adam C., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
During the nineteenth century, African American women like Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, and Julia Foote wrote narratives of their spiritual conversions. Through their efforts and the efforts of others like them, spiritual autobiographies became not only evangelical tools but also a means of shaping African American culture and American society in general. While some black women were working to claim power for their gender and race by writing spiritual narratives, other women, both black and white...
Show moreDuring the nineteenth century, African American women like Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, and Julia Foote wrote narratives of their spiritual conversions. Through their efforts and the efforts of others like them, spiritual autobiographies became not only evangelical tools but also a means of shaping African American culture and American society in general. While some black women were working to claim power for their gender and race by writing spiritual narratives, other women, both black and white, were working with sentimental literature to achieve similar goals.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004463, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004463
- Subject Headings
- African American aesthetics, African American women authors -- 19th century -- Criticism and interpretation, American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism, American literature -- African American authors, Antislavery movements in literature, Elaw, Zilpha -- approximately 1790- -- Criticism and interpretation, Emotions in literature, Foote, Julia A.J. -- 1823-1900 -- Criticism and interpretation, Lee, Jarena -- 1783- -- Criticism and interpretation, Spirituality in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Moving Ever Forward: Reading the Significance of Motion and Space as a Representation of Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.
- Creator
- Richmond, Samantha, Furman, Andrew, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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This thesis argues that three models of trauma theory, which include traditional trauma theory, postcolonial trauma theory, and cultural trauma theory, must be joined to fully understand the trauma experienced by African Americans within the novels Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. By implementing these three theories, we can see how each novel’s main character is exploring and learning about African American trauma and better understand how an...
Show moreThis thesis argues that three models of trauma theory, which include traditional trauma theory, postcolonial trauma theory, and cultural trauma theory, must be joined to fully understand the trauma experienced by African Americans within the novels Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. By implementing these three theories, we can see how each novel’s main character is exploring and learning about African American trauma and better understand how an adjustment of space and time creates the possibility for the implementation of trauma theory. Each novel presents a journey, and it is through this movement through space that each character can serve as a witness to African American trauma. This is done in Morrison’s text by condensing the geographical space of the American north and south into one town, which serves to pluralize African American culture. In Whitehead’s text, American history is removed from its chronological place, which creates a duality that instills Freud’s theory of the uncanny within both the character and the reader.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004839, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004839
- Subject Headings
- Psychic trauma., Psychic trauma--African Americans., American literature--African American authors--History and criticism--Theory, etc., Underground Railroad--Fiction., African American families--Fiction., Morrison, Toni.--Song of Solomon--Criticism and interpretation., Whitehead, Colson--1969---Underground railroad--Criticism and interpretation.
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Reading, Writing, and Language: The Neo-Slave Novel and the Changing Definition of Literacy.
- Creator
- Segal, Pamela H., Dagbovie-Mullins, Sika A., Florida Atlantic University
- Abstract/Description
-
After examining the neo-slave genre it becomes evident that the definition of the genre provided by AshrafRushdy is incomplete, because it does not include an important component of the narrative, literacy. By adding to Rushdy's definition, the narrative's dimensions change and the discussion of the genre is given a new perspective. Many neo-slave narratives' discussions of literacy correspond to the time of publication, not the time period or setting of the novels. Therefore, by interpreting...
Show moreAfter examining the neo-slave genre it becomes evident that the definition of the genre provided by AshrafRushdy is incomplete, because it does not include an important component of the narrative, literacy. By adding to Rushdy's definition, the narrative's dimensions change and the discussion of the genre is given a new perspective. Many neo-slave narratives' discussions of literacy correspond to the time of publication, not the time period or setting of the novels. Therefore, by interpreting the development of literacy alongside the neo-slave narrative, one is able to consider the significance of this connection. By examining three novels within the neo-slave genre, Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada (1976), Shirley Ann Williams's Dessa Rose (1986) and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987), I contend that Ashraf Rushdy' s definition of the narrative appears too limited. The cultural perspective and use of literacy within the neo-slave novel allows for further examination of this important component.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000961
- Subject Headings
- Slavery in literature, Influence (Literary, artistic, etc), American prose literature--African American authors--Criticism and interpretation, Reed, Ishmael,--1938---Flight to Canada--Criticism and interpretation, Williams, Shirley Ann--Dessa Rose--Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni--Beloved--Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)