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Full-Text Articles in American Literature
Terror, Hospitality And The Gift Of Death In Morrison’S Beloved, Puspa Damai
Terror, Hospitality And The Gift Of Death In Morrison’S Beloved, Puspa Damai
English Faculty Research
The “us versus them” narrative still pre-dominates the analysis of terrorism in the West, which invariably associates “them” with terrorism. Toni Morrison’s hauntingly memorable novel – Beloved – provides a radically different and historically grounded view of terror and terrorism in the West. The novel not only releases us from the “us versus them” paradigm by demonstrating America’s intimacy with terror, it also enables us to examine terror and terrorism from the perspective of a gendered and ethnic subject who subverts the easy categorization of “us” and “them” or civilized and terrorist. Following Jacques Derrida’s contemplations on death and terror, …
Identity Anxiety And The Power And Problem Of Naming In African American And Jewish American Literature, Rachael Peckham
Identity Anxiety And The Power And Problem Of Naming In African American And Jewish American Literature, Rachael Peckham
English Faculty Research
This article examines the fraught power of names and (re)naming in African-American and Jewish-authored literature in 20th-century America. The article applies various concepts within critical race theory, such as critic Stuart Hall's theories on cultural identity, to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Ralph Ellison's personal essay "Hidden Name and Complex Fate," and Bernard Malamud's short story "The Lady of the Lake." In each of these texts, African-American and Jewish characters' names serve as loaded markers for the shifting planes of identity in tension with a culture and history of oppression.