Literature of the Harlem Renaissance documents the essence and emergence of a new post-reconstructionist Black culture. Blackness, which has never before been given the platform to develop and evolve in Western society, is now burdened with the responsibility of creating its own identity, values, aspirations, and limits. During this early 1920’s time frame it is… Continue reading Cultural Infancy ( Final Project Draft)
For my final project I will discuss what I call “Black Cultural Infancy”, the time period after Reconstruction in which Blackness was discovering its new identity within the changing American landscape. I will explain the “growing pains” of this developing new identity and how identity exploration culminated into various works of the Harlem Renaissance. I… Continue reading Sable Gravesandy Final Proposal
The tour really confirmed the practice of passing for me. Even though we studied it in class, I didn’t realize how common it was. The fact that Adam Clayton Powell was able to achieve so much partly due to his complexion really made me see the lengths that Black people had to go to to… Continue reading Passing Come to Life — Walking Tour Hot Take
In “Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities” by Kim Gallon, Black Digital Humanities should be founded on lost Black literary texts. I like this point because I feel like the dehumanizing of Black people is heavily rooted in African cultures not having a “written” word. While we now know this to be true,… Continue reading Black Digital Humanities Hot Take
In Harlem Renaissance literature the gaze is a common trope used to represent feelings of longing and desire. Subjects glance at the foreign or unknown “other”, visually captivated by the things that are different from them. In the eyes of Black characters however, this gaze takes on a more complicated and sometimes even devious meaning.… Continue reading The Wary Gaze: Looking at the “Exotic” and/or Dangerous — Blog Post 5 (Final)
I feel like the marriage between Irene and Brian in the book has a lot more tension and subtext. Brian’s desire to leave rubs against Irene’s desire to be safe and economically stable. In this way, Irene is shown to be very controlling. She wants to create a sense of safety for herself and her… Continue reading Class Blog Post: Brian’s Just a Security Blanket
Irene was glad that he was being nice to Clare, and glad that Clare was having the opportunity to discover that some coloured men were superior to some white men. I was surprised at this sentence because it seems like a very trivial thing to think about. Irene wants Clare to know that colored men… Continue reading Black Uplift or Black Trophies?
Yukki Tsang, Sable Gravesandy, Xhile Selami, Brenika Banks Desire is the wanting of the thing we cannot possess. In the novel, we see many types of desire, both romantic and social. Irene desires the ability to be confident and affirmed in her Blackness, however her insecurities cause her to over compensate by “choosing” a darker… Continue reading Living Rent Free In Her Head: Irene’s Desire for Clare (Queer, Status, et al.)
The film Passing (2021) was rift with unspoken tension. So many of the characters were indirectly clashing and competing with each other. Clare and Irene, Irene and Brian, Brian and Clare, Clare and her husband etc. What I like about these unspoken conflicts is that it explores the diversity of the Black experience. Different characters… Continue reading Dark on Dark: Conflicts of color in Passing — Passing Hot Take