Arts and Humanities Commons^™

African Heritage And The Caribbean-Brazilian Experience, Michelle D. Thompson

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus reflects having students do self-guided research over a semester that doesn't require textbooks.

Aas 232 African Civilizations, Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum

Open Educational Resources

Exploration of the development of African civilizations from the origin of humankind to the present day. Their contributions to the development of the continent and the major world civilizations. The course carries us through Africa’s major civilizations clusters, and offers a comparative survey extending from the Nile Valley Civilizations, through the Niger River Civilizations, to the Bantu cluster comprising the Central, Southern and Swahili Civilizations. Particular attention is paid to religious and philosophical beliefs, literature and the arts, social and political organization, economic, scientific, and technological developments. Also highlighted are contributions of African women in the history and development of …

Antillean Literature - Comparative Literature In The Spanish Antilles, Cuba, Dominican Republic, And Puerto Rico, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Open Educational Resources

This course will cover literature from Spanish Antilles and will be conducted in English. We will include a study of foundational texts in translation, from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, as well as contemporary works by Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican authors.

The Making And Silencing Of “Axé-Ocracy” In Brazil: Black Women Writers’ Spiritual, Political And Literary Movement In São Paulo, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In this article, I will focus on two influential writers from the south of Brazil, Cristiane Sobral who currently lives in Brasília, from Rio de Janeiro, and Conceição Evaristo who currently lives in Rio de Janeiro state, from Minas Gerais. I got to know them in São Paulo in 2015 at a public event: the “Afroétnica Flink! Sampa Festival of Black Thought, Literature and Culture.” I will include references to some of their younger contemporaries such as Raquel Almeida, Jenyffer Nascimento, and Elizandra Souza, all of whom reside in São Paulo, in order to illustrate the Black Brazilian women writers’ …

The Personal Is Historical: Slavery, Black Power And Resistance In Octavia Butler’S Kindred, Megan Behrent

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Harlem And Abroad: Notes To An International 'Renaissance', Joshua I. Cohen

Publications and Research

Like other intractable figures of the Harlem Renaissance, the movement’s visual artists sometimes exceeded their expected parameters, and thus their anticipated representativeness of a locality. Their images, in other words, did not automatically disclose Harlem-bound or even US-bound concerns. Now familiar through continual reproduction in exhibition catalogues, scholarly monographs and literary compendia, certain artworks from the period – such as Archibald J. Motley’s Blues (1929; Figure 1) and Aaron Douglas’s Congo (c. 1928; Figure 2) – subverted any definition of the Harlem Renaissance that would hinge on a narrowly delimited urban geography or national imaginary. Motley, who painted ‘Blues’ during …

Re-Visioning Ralph Ellison’S Invisible Man For A Class Of Urban Immigrant Youth, Camille Goodison

Publications and Research

In this essay, I will explore Ralph Ellison’s 1952 classic novel, Invisible Man, as a text that has contemporary and relatable themes for a modern-day classroom of mostly urban youth. This essay is also a personal journey into how Ellison’s inventive approaches to form helped create a work that lends itself to contemporary reimagining. It asks the question, can Ellison’s interest in creating a living Afro-American literary tradition rooted in the lore of the ‘peasant’ or common folk have contemporary applications? How does Ellison’s belief that everyday folk expression has value hold up for today’s readers? I try to …

Hispanics In The U.S.: Migration And Adjustment, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Open Educational Resources

This course will discuss the challenge that the multifaceted Latino/a-Hispanic reality poses to the anglo-european and monocultural conception of the United States. For the most part, mainstream approaches to the study of Latino and Latina populations in the United States tend to focus on Latinos/as as a problem group, somehow outside and distinct from society. In our approach, we will shift perspectives to the myriad identities that in fact constitute the U.S. We will read and discuss texts on the socio-economic and political origins of migration from Latin America and the Spanish speaking Caribbean to the United States, as well …

Muddling The Middle: Cynical Representations Of Ethnic Relations In V.S. And Shiva Naipaul, Kevin Frank

Publications and Research

In this essay from the collection, Seepersad and Sons: Naipaulian Synergies, Kevin Frank argues that coming from a creolized society, unlike their father, Seepersad, V.S. and Shiva Naipaul's representations of "race" and ethnicity in their works is cynical, favoring one side in the Indo- and Afro-Caribbean racial antagonism, mainly because of their anxiety about "Black Power."

“In The Beginning Was Body Language” Clowning And Krump As Spiritual Healing And Resistance, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In the neighborhood of HollyWatts in Los Angeles, dance allows a shift from existing as bodies presented as sites of threat and extinction to sources of spiritual empowerment. Clowning and Krump dancers—their subjectivity and their dancing bodies—negotiate survival from trauma and socioeconomic marginalization. I argue that the dancers’ performances act as embodied narratives of “re-membering in the flesh.” The performance acts as a spiritual retrieval and re-integration of traumatic memories and afflictions into memory through the body. Choreography and quotes from dancers support the claim that Krump and Clowning is “re-membering in the flesh” that enacts self-worth, self-defined sexuality, and …

Resenhando Autoras Negras: Feministas, Plurais E Diásporicas/ Reviewing Black Authors: Feminists, Plurals, And Diasporic, Sarah S. Ohmer, Alexandra Lima Da Silva

Publications and Research

Este texto realiza um mapeamento de edições de autoras do pensamento feminista negro dos Estados Unidos e a circulação de tais livros no mercado editorial brasileiro. Procura compreender os significados do movimento de publicação de autoras negras no Brasil. O texto conclui que a emergência da autoria de mulheres negras no Brasil é um processo permeado pelas relações desiguais e pela necessidade de enfrentar lógicas heteronormativas, masculinas e eurocentradas. Resenhar obras de mulheres negras evidência um campo fértil, com repertórios plurais e diaspóricos.

This article maps out the various U.S. Black Feminist Thought publications translated into Portuguese and their circulation …

A Pedagogical Search For Home And Care, Marta Effinger-Crichlow

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.