Title: Queer Reality and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance My final project will center around expressions of sexuality, specifically queer sexuality in the period of the Harlem Renaissance. I will show how writers and thinkers of the Harlem renaissance were able to express their thoughts and feelings about sexuality, both straight and queer, at a… Continue reading Christopher Edwards Final Blog Site Proposal
The Harlem tour was incredibly engaging and informative. It was moving to walk through streets with so much history and imagine what Harlem was like a century ago. Standouts for me was learning more about Marcus Harvey’s Black Star Line and getting to stand in the spot where the Savoy Ballroom was located. The walking… Continue reading Walking Tour Reflection
Today’s in-class discussion about the readings based on Black Digital Humanities made me think a lot about history as it happens online. Increasingly, what is said and shared on the internet is as important as what happens in the physical world. Many of us take for granted that everything online will be recorded and exist… Continue reading How Should we be Archiving the Internet?
Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929) is an insightful piece of literature on racial tension, colorism, and intracommunity struggles. But just beneath the surface, it can just as easily be read as a story about queer desire. Reading between the lines, protagonist Irene, and several other characters, may indeed be passing–not for white, but for straight. It… Continue reading Close Encounters of the Same Kind (FINAL)
In my group, we discussed Clare’s husband John and tried to understand what his character’s thoughts and motivations are. I presented the idea that John may have actually known that Clare was Black, and was in denial about it or willing to ignore it if it meant he could have a wife and a “complete”… Continue reading Who is John Bellew and what does he know?
In reading the first chapters of Passing, what stands out the most is Irene’s supposed indifference and disdain toward Clare’s life choices. She seems at once very judgemental of Clare, declaring at the end of the first chapter that she was “done” with her, but earlier she invited her to spend a weekend with her… Continue reading Irene’s Repulsion & Curisoity
Entering Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room, we imagined the house as one that would have existed in Seneca Village, the current site of Central Park and the MET Museum itself. The room takes you on a trip through time, mixing the past with the present. For Trinity, the house invoked the… Continue reading Space and Imagination in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room & Fictions of Emancipation
In The Crisis, Survey Graphic, Opportunity, and perhaps the majority of black writing to come out of this time period exists not only a similar goal of the advancement of the black race, but also a yearning for a higher, more perfect way of being and living. It was not enough for Black thinkers at… Continue reading Mythologies of a New Negro and a Black Utopia – Final
In The Crisis, Survey Graphic, Opportunity, and perhaps the majority of black writing to come out of this time period exists not only a similar goal of the advancement of the black race, but also a yearning for a higher, more perfect way of being and living. It was not enough for black thinkers at… Continue reading Mythologies of a New Negro and a Black Utopia
In Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro, non-fiction essays about Harlem and the black experience are placed side-by-side with imaginative and fictive work like the journal’s many poems and illustrations. Both kinds of work are given equal importance on the page, serving the common goal of enlightening the reader on “modern” black life in Harlem.… Continue reading The Importance of Imagination in Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro