White Evangelicals and Critical Race Theory
On August 18, 1963, 10 days before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an article entitled “Our Laws Must Be Upheld” appeared in The Shreveport Times. The author derided the “Negro rights” revolution, writing that there has been “increasing public revulsion against the avalanche of propaganda that it is all right for Negroes and their white supporters to break laws in bloody street demonstrations because the so-called ‘rights’ they seek are something they are ‘supposed’ to have.” Part of this “avalanche of propaganda,” according to…
A few weeks ago, I read Malaka Gharib’s I Was Their American Dream. Gharib’s graphic memoir details coming of age as a first generation American immigrant, the daughter of a Filipino mother and Egyptian father. She explores the ways that she struggled with her identity, and the ways that she felt pulled, a lot of the time, in at least three directions in this regard: her mother’s culture, her father’s culture, and white American culture. All of these aspects are important to discuss, and they are topics that I will talk about with students when I teach Gharib’s text next…
How do I construct a syllabus? Why do I choose the authors I choose? Why do I choose the texts? Out of all the writers and works of literature, how do I narrow down what I want students to read during a sixteen week semester? Well, today I’m going to talk some about my thought process when constructing my syllabi. I do this, some, when I present syllabi on this site; however, today I want to dive deeper, specifically into how the process of selecting texts for my courses benefits my students as well as myself. …
Lillian E Smith Graphic Memoir Download
Last spring, I assigned a graphic memoir project in my Literature and Composition Graphic Memoir class. As part of the class, I constructed my own graphic memoir alongside my students. For this post, I want to share with you my finished project and my artist statement, a brief discussion of some of the choices I made when creating the graphic memoir. In a future post, I will go into more detail about the layout and design choices I used in the project.
From the beginning of this project, I knew that I wanted to…
Recently, I had a conversation with Jennifer Morrison, for my Multicultural American Literature class, on Ernest Gaines’ A Gathering of Old Men. At one point, we began talking about Fix and the ways that Gaines represents him, specifically through the eyes of an outsider to the community, Sully. This topic led me to eventually ask, “Who is the villain in the novel?” On the surface, it seems like Fix, but that is not necessarily the case. I posited that the villain of the novel is white supremacy, and Jennifer argued that it’s capitalism. This part of the conversation really made…
If you have read my blog over the last couple of years, you know I have been thinking a lot about whether or not we can truly know ourselves. At the core of this inquiry is whether or not we can ever disentangle ourselves from all of the cultural, familial, and other influences that pour themselves into us on a daily basis. …
As I read Ernest Gaines’ “Bloodline” recently, the interactions between ‘Malia and Frank Laurent stood out. The story, essentially, centers around Copper, the son of Frank’s brother Walter who raped Copper’s mother. Copper has returned to the Laurent plantation to claim what is his, by birth. Essentially, he arrives to overthrow the system that denies him an existence due to the fact that his mother was Black. It does not matter that Walter raped Copper’s mother. What matters, for Frank and others, is that his mother was Black.
While Copper’s return and the ways that Frank and the other characters…
Last post I discussed «Lett å være rebell i kjellerleiligheten din» (“Easy to be a rebel in your basement light”) from Karpe’s Heisann Montebello (2016)and the ways that the song addresses xenophobic, Islamophobic, and racist rhetoric. Today, I want to continue some of that same discussion by looking at another song on the album, «Attitudeproblem» (“Attitude Problem”). This song confronts how we use language and directly points out the metaphorical use of language in hip hop. As well, it addresses the trappings of modern society, trappings that hinder us from ignoring the suffering around us.
An important aspect to remember…
My research into Norwegian hip hop is ever evolving. I keep finding new artists and songs everyday, but the one group that has really caught my attention is Karpe Diem, a group that consists of Magdi (Egyptian/Norwegian) and Chirag (Indian/Norwegian). Their 2015–2016 project Heisann Montebello (Hello Montebello) exists as a political statement on behalf of individuals who ask, as Pumba puts it, «Hvor faen jeg ifra?» Heisann Montebello consists of seven songs, released over the course of two years, with accompanying music videos for each one. …
In Soledad Marimbo’s Retazos Una conversación con Sylvia Molloy, the Argentinian writer speaks about memory, writing, and the passage of time. When talking about two of the houses where she lived — her parent’s house in Argentina and one she owned in Long Island — Molloy talks about their similarities, specifically the courtyards. The two houses, due to some of the similarities, mingle within her mind, joining together into a memory that did not actually occur but that arose out of events that actually took place. …
Matthew Teutsch
Here, you will find reflections on African American, American, and Southern Literature, American popular culture and politics, and pedagogy.
