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In Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Roxanne Gay’s An Untamed State, how are different representations of black motherhood portrayed in literature through the lenses of self-sacrifice and ownership? How do these mother-child relationships reflect the experience of the time periods in which these novels took place?  What do these representations say about the expectations of black motherhood across the diaspora? In looking at three novels that span from days during and immediately after plantation slavery to the current day, I plan to explore these questions.

In all three of these novels, mothers lose themselves, or almost do; mother is separated from child, creating an even need for her to protect and love her child. We see in Gay’s An Untamed State, horrible violence inflicted against a mother, enough that she begins to lose her sense of self. In Morrison’s Beloved, the love for a lost child causes a mother to deteriorate and collapse in on herself. Jacobs, in her autobiography, physically disables herself in order to own and protect her children. These women are all bound by their motherhood to protect and love their children. Different types of motherhood are displayed in these stories: the mothering of mothers by their children, the killing of one's child to save them from an even darker fate, mothering through stillness and waiting. Each of these texts reveals the ways that black women fight, endure, and break in order to fulfill this duty as mother by any means necessary.

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Black Joy, Nature & The Urban Imperative 

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Black Joy, Nature & The Urban Imperative 

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Research Proposal:

I propose to research the connection between black women and nature, particularly within Tony Morrison’s, Beloved.  “Nature” will be defined as the natural elements within the environmental landscape and setting of the novel, featuring earth, wind, fire, and water as the major vehicles of symbolism.  I aim to analyze the moments where black joy is empowered by the natural world, while also looking at the moments where there is a hysteria borne out of a disassociation with the very same.  I intend to ground my analysis of this historical era in the present day, where blackness and nature have become diasporic within the modern vernacular, and thus replaced by urbanism as a defining constraint and racial representative.

Preliminary Bibliography:

Albano, Alessandra. “Nature and Black Femininity in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Tell My Horse.” Journal of African American Studies, vol. 24, no. 1, Mar. 2020, pp. 23–36. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s12111-019-09451-9.

Brahinsky, Rachel, et al. “Race, Space, and Nature: An Introduction and Critique.” Antipode, vol. 46, no. 5, Nov. 2014, pp. 1135–1152. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/anti.12109.

Hass, Robert. "Black Nature." Ecotone, vol. 1 no. 2, 2012, p. 32-45. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ect.2012.0005.

Mapp, Rue. “Doubling Down on Black Joy in Nature.” Bay Nature, vol. 17, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 44–46. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,uid&db=aph&AN=120576592&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

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Subjugation of the Black Female Body: Then and Now

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Subjugation of the Black Female Body: Then and Now

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I would like to focus on the subjugation of Black women and the reclaiming of such power through contemporary representations of the Black female body. I would focus on the perpetual healing from the wounds of domestic violence, slavery, and white supremacy through expressed bodily autonomy of modern pop culture figures. The reclaiming of Black women’s bodies through modern day culture is complicated by a racialized fear of Black female hypersexuality, that then transfers onto the criminalized Black male body and sexualized white female body. This representation is then countered by the realities of present-day, where Black women and girls still face higher risks of sexual violence than their white counterparts (Bureau of Justice) and are vastly underrepresented in movements like #MeToo (hence the emergence of the We, As Ourselves movement).

My focus, therefore, would be primarily on The Venus and its display of voyeurism and its emphasis on the Venus’ physical features, as well as Beloved, and how ultimately, the women’s body is put on critical display, becoming either the site of resistance or reification.

Although I have not yet read Their Eyes Were Watching God, some preliminary research tells me that it overlaps greatly with themes of domestic violence and spirituality; so, there lies potential here to add examples and information from this text since I will be presenting on it. I would analyze how these texts attempt to reify the power of the Black body, paired with how these texts help us to interpret Black women’s reclaiming of bodily autonomy today.

Preliminary Bibliography

Bureau of Justice: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf

Tasharofi, P. (2014). Domestic violence in zora neale hurston's their eyes were watching god: A feminist reading. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 3(4), 120-127. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.3n.4p.120

Marshall, Annecka. “Reclaiming the Erotic Power of Black Women.” Social and Economic Studies, vol. 60, no. 1, University of the West Indies, 2011, pp. 61–90, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41635292.

Kopano Ratele. “Proper Sex, Bodies, Culture and Objectification.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, no. 63, [Agenda Feminist Media, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.], 2005, pp. 32–42, https://doi.org/10.2307/4066627.

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Café Con Mucha Leche: Autoethnography of a Black Boricua

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Café Con Mucha Leche: Autoethnography of a Black Boricua

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Is there a criteria for one identifying as Black in 2021? Who decides who is Black or not? Does pigmentation precede biological, genetic, and psychological evidence when one self-names as Black? If you don’t see me as Black, does that mean that I am not? Are Spanish-speaking families neither white nor Black? How has U.S. legislation and popular culture terrorized Spanish-speaking families into disavowing blackness from their lives and ancestry?

The erasure of Black representation in Puerto Rican families--in Borikén and the U.S.A--is a result of fear mongering and Eurocentric ideologies. The amount of Puerto Ricans checking “white” in the U.S. Census rose dramatically between 1899 and 1950. The language used in the U.S. Census still enforces the Black and white race binary, noting “Hispanic” or “Latino” as ethnicity markers. 20th century anti-Black legislation, media and sentiments catalyzed the evasion of Black identity in Puerto Rican communities. This psychic terrorism by the U.S. spurred changemakers like Victoria Santa Cruz, Pura Belpré and Marta Morena Vega to use literature as a gateway for embracing African ancestry in the Americas. Colorism, light-skin privilege, phenotypic stigmatization, and inaccessible family trees continue to hinder non-white Puerto Ricans from confronting their ancestral connections to the Mother Continent.

My great grandmother’s skin tone was a rich café sin leche. My abuela is café con un poco de leche. My mother is café con leche. I am café con mucha leche. Through a collection of personal experiences, anthropology of African-Boricua history, 19-20th century U.S. Census statistics, and artistic writing by Black women this essay highlights the historical tethers binding the Black and Puerto Rican experiences in the U.S.; to disprove the notion that pigmentation is the determining factor in dictating whether a Boricua is Black or not.

Preliminary Bibliography:

Collins, Patricia Hill. “Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.” Routledge, 2021.

Duany, Jorde. “Neither White nor Black: The Representation of Racial Identity Among Puerto Ricans on the Island and in the U.S. Mainland.” Palgrave MacMillan, 2005, pp. 173-188, https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/content/pdf/10.1057%2F9781403982636.pdf.

Gordon, Maxine W. “Race Patterns and Prejudice in Puerto Rico.” American Sociological Review, vol. 14, no. 2, [American Sociological Association, Sage Publications, Inc.], 1949, pp. 294–301, https://doi.org/10.2307/2086864.

Gibson, Samantha. “Puerto Rican Migration to the US,” Digital Public Library of America, <http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/puerto-rican-migration-to-the-us>.

Hernández-Delgado, Julio L. “Pura Teresa Belpré, Storyteller and Pioneer Puerto Rican Librarian.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, vol. 62, no. 4, University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 425–40, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4308742.

Jones, Marcus D., et al. “An Interview with Victoria Santa Cruz.” Callaloo, vol. 34, no. 2, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, pp. 304–08, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41243069.

Nash, Jennifer Christine. “Chapter 4: Love in the Time of Death.” Black Feminism Reimagined after Intersectionality, Duke University Press, Durham, 2019.

Rodriguez, Kayla Marie. “Black Amerinquen.” CUNY Academic Works, 2019, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3207

Sanchez-Korrol, Virginia. “History of Puerto Ricans in the U.S.” Centro for Puerto Rican Studies, <https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/education/history-puerto-ricans-us>.

Sharpe, Christina Elizabeth. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Duke University Press, Durham, 2016, Introduction.

Wall, Sarah. “An Autoethnography on learning about Autoethnography.” vol. 5, issue no. 2, University of Alberta, 2006, pp. 146-160,  https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/doi/full/10.1177/160940690600500205.

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Topic –

Many of our conversations around the supernatural have been connected to death – ghosts, spirits, figurines in the reflections of the mirror. What if the supernatural presence is a bond between mother and child – something that death cannot even break? The topic I have been leaning towards is sacrifice and how maternal love can be represented in an almost supernatural way. Two pieces of work that I will be relying on significantly are Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. I believe both novels highlight the supernatural strength of motherhood with an understanding that, regardless of the sacrifice, the mother will do what must be done for the sake of her children. Some questions I have been developing include – How does a mother’s instinct fend off death? Does love of one’s own bring more pain to life? I want to gain a better understanding of the supernatural in these novels, but through a different lens than just death. Whether or not I succeed is yet to be decided. I might revert to the broader “supernatural” theme and work my way down if faced with too much difficulty with this specific path. I think it could be interesting, though!

Preliminary Bibliography –

Jesser, Nancy. “Violence, Home, and Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” African American Review, vol. 33, no. 2, [Indiana State University, Saint Louis University, African American Review, African American Review (St. Louis University)], 1999, pp. 325–45, https://doi.org/10.2307/2901282.

LI, STEPHANIE. “Motherhood as Resistance in Harriet Jacobs’s <em>Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl</Em>.” Legacy, vol. 23, no. 1, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, pp. 14–29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25684492.

Putnam, Amanda. “Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, and A Mercy.” Black Women, Gender + Families, vol. 5, no. 2, University of Illinois Press, 2011, pp. 25–43, https://doi.org/10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.2.0025.

Shapiro, Barbara. “The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Understanding Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Sula: Selected Essays and Criticisms of the Works by the Nobel Prize-Winning Author, edited by Solomon O. Iyasere and Marla W. Iyasere, Whitston, 2000, pp. 155–172. EBSCOhost,

https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=4d102ef3-9027-496a-9366-f51667eba872%40redis&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#AN=2000056932&db=mzh.

Story, Ralph D. “SACRIFICE AND SURRENDER: SETHE IN TONI MORRISON’S ‘BELOVED.’” CLA Journal, vol. 46, no. 1, College Language Association, 2002, pp. 21–29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44325135.

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(I will be presenting my final in the form of a paper)

Throughout history the role of the black mother has been one of extreme subjugation. Black motherhood is viewed as strong, as weak, as immoral, as necessary for the creation of property. Drawing from “Incidents in the Life”, “Lose Your Mother,” and “Beloved,” I plan to create a picture of the ways that black mothers and the idea of black motherhood was created and how authors like Jacobs, Hartman, and Morrison subvert these images and attempt to assert the autonomy of black mothers. During slavery, women who killed their children, such as in  “Beloved,” are tried with “destruction of property” rather than with the murder of a human being, a child. Considering questions such as: How was black motherhood perverted and turned into a form of sexual pleasure for white men? How did the dehumanization of black women’s motherhood create a culture wherein one’s mother was consistently ‘lost’? How have standards for black mothers, such as morality, religion, and self-sacrifice, morphed into the generational trauma that exists in black families today? How did authors such as Jacobs and Morrison assert the autonomy and personhood of black mothers separate from their children? How does the ‘ownership’ of one’s own children subvert the power of their white suppressors?

Ghasemi, Parvin. The Pennsylvania State University. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1994. 9518745. https://www.proquest.com/openview/b4417fb6318729165b85e10847aece02/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Barclay, Jenifer L. “Mothering the ‘Useless’: Black Motherhood, Disability, and Slavery.” Women, Gender, and Families of Color, vol. 2, no. 2, University of Illinois Press, 2014, pp. 115–40, https://doi.org/10.5406/womgenfamcol.2.2.0115.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/womgenfamcol.2.2.0115

LI, STEPHANIE. “Motherhood as Resistance in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Legacy, vol. 23, no. 1, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, pp. 14–29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25684492.

Ghasemi, Parvin. “NEGOTIATING BLACK MOTHERHOOD IN TONI MORRISON’S NOVELS.” CLA Journal, vol. 53, no. 3, College Language Association, 2010, pp. 235–53, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44325640.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44325640

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The Role of Black Women in Liberation from the 19th Century to the Modern Day

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The Role of Black Women in Liberation from the 19th Century to the Modern Day

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The struggles of the proletariat are best exemplified through working class black women. I would like to analyze the role of black women in the liberation movement by tracing history from post-slavery to the modern day through the lens of: Venus, Raisin in the Sun, Intimations, Hartman’s Seduction and Power, and Hansberry’s Black Revolution and White Backlash, alongside the work of Claudia Jones.

By looking at the immediate postbellum American world and the struggles black women faced, I intend to document early methods of organization and liberation in the face of Jim Crow and numerous other obstacles. This same framework will apply through the mid-twentieth century before culminating with an in-depth analysis of Smith’s COVID experiences in Intimations. The black community’s opposition to state sanctioned violence, for-profit prisons and prison labor, and felon voting laws will be looked at in conjunction with black liberation groups, especially Claudia Jones’s activism.

I will look at the questions of: how has the struggle of black women changed since slavery? In what ways is liberation stymied by governmental violence, policies, and social barriers? What is the impact, as of 2021, of the COVID pandemic on black organizations and social progress?

And the most pressing question; since I found a 2017 senior thesis from a Trinity student online that deals with a strikingly similar topic (though it’s through a different textual lens), will this proposal be immediately disqualified, and I’ll need to write a new one?

Clarke, Camryn S. “Escaping the Master’s House: Claudia Jones & The Black Marxist Feminist Tradition.” Trinity College, Trinity College Digital Repository, 2017, pp. 1–45.

Clegg, John. “How Slavery Shaped American Capitalism.” Jacobin, 28 Aug. 2019, https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-capitalism.

Heideman, Paul. “Socialism and Black Oppression.” Jacobin, 30 Apr. 2018, https://jacobinmag.com/2018/04/socialism-marx-race-class-struggle-color-line.

Losier, Toussaint. “The Movement against ‘Modern Day Slavery.’” Jacobin, 9 Feb. 2018, https://jacobinmag.com/2018/09/prison-strike-slavery-labor-jls-abolition.

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Research Paper:

For my paper, I would like to focus on how Black women who are professional athletes fight back against systemic racism.  Specifically, I want to focus on Black women athletes’ retaining agency through prioritization of mental health regardless of the perpetual scrutiny from the public.  Serena Williams, Simone Biles, and Naomi Osaka have taken a hardline stance fighting for themselves and mental health awareness as well as future black women inside sports in the past few years.  The media have unjustly publicly attacked these women for recognizing they need to take time away from their respective athletic endeavors to improve their mental health. How does systemic racism inside media coverage promote the objectification of Black women?  How have generations of trauma and manipulation infected the voice of Black women in athletics?  How has the media’s sexualization of Black women athletes been detrimental to mental health and future generations?

Preliminary Bibliography:

https://academic.oup.com/joc/article-abstract/53/2/216/4102887

; Women in sports : breaking barriers, facing obstacles

A Spectacular Leap: Black Women Athletes in Twentieth-Century America by Jennifer H. Lansbury (review)

Smith, Maureen M

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This sounds amazing! I can definitely see the connections between your ideas and Beloved.  I agree with Prof. Paulin I think taking a look at the ‘spectacle’ that is discussed in Venus could be very interesting.  I really appreciate the connection between clothing and self-love.  Every day we choose to wrap ourselves in clothing based on certain circumstances or how we are feeling and I believe that clothing is an opportunity to retain agency in a world that consistently is sexualizing female bodies.  Excited to see how you present your work!

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In my paper I want to focus on the ways in which slavery still impacts Black women and the ways they are treated in todays society. One of the themes that stood out to me was that hardships Black women face did not change just because slavery was over but that the trauma, more specifically, how the generational trauma not only continues in familial settings but in social ones as well. I argue that the effects of slavery has simply been modernized in order to stay legal and to keep up with the times. For example, we see many challenges specifically regarding the labor force, socioeconomic status, and even through identity politics (how Black women are perceived and how they view themselves).
I want to begin referencing Carby's work and the idea that begins with "slavery (being) a source of stereotypes about Black women". Carby speaks about the over sexuality and the lack of agency Black women have over their own bodies because of slavery. Then I will bring in Eloquent Rage to focus on the Sandra Bland's "emotional" reaction and Cooper mentioning that “Black girls don’t get to do frivolous shit like that”, emphasizing the differences in behaviors that Black women are 'allowed' to have.
The questions I will keep in mind are:
In what ways do I see the challenges Black women face in today's society and how that may be a result of slavery. A cause and effect.
What are the differences that I see throughout Black women writers and how does status and identity become a root problem in the ways that Black women are treated.

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I will be examining the hyper-sexualization/ hyper-racialization of Serena Williams and comparing that to the spectacle described in ‘Venus’ written by Lori-Parks. I am analyzing the use of social media to combat the stereotypes of black womanhood and promote mental health awareness. Specifically, Naomi Osaka’s decision to take time off from tennis to improve her well-being after becoming extremely famous essentially overnight.  Simone Biles chose to sit out from the Olympics this past summer. She prepared to give testimony against the FBI agent who dismissed information against the child predator who raped her and many other girls on the United States gymnastics team.  This was scrutinized and manipulated by mass media, presenting Biles as weak and failing her country. In reality, our systematically racist/sexist system has and continues to fail her and many other Black women.  I will be presenting my work in a paper.

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Jill Schuck Research Proposal (Updated 11/8)

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Jill Schuck Research Proposal (Updated 11/8)

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To expand on my previous proposal, I would like to include dialogue on the beauty industry. In addition to fashion, I will examine how exclusivity in the beauty industry, as well as defiances of Western beauty standards, influence perceptions of self-love and racial identity. When examining Western conventions of beauty, I'll mainly focus on Venus. I plan to parallel/contrast ideas of beauty in Venus to those in Dirty Computer, where fashion, makeup, and hair is much more self-expressive and noncompliant. I've decided to arrange my project as a "fashion magazine" or blog, which will likely take form on a website.

Craig, Maxine Leeds. Ain't I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Gill, Tiffany M. Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women's Activism in the Beauty Industry. University of Illinois Press, 2010.

King, Lollie. “The Evolution of Black Beauty: From the '90s to Now.” Harper's BAZAAR, 21 Oct. 2021, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/beauty/a38010209/black-beauty-evolution/.

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The format that I've chosen for my final project is to do a Padlet gallery that is date, site, and figure based! I imagine a virtual timeline of sorts that is organized around linking Black Feminist Theory on intersectionality, real world expressions of it and examples of misogynoir (like in Jacobs' Incidents, and the way fiction has portrayed or engaged with these ideas.

I want to take some time to creatively explore this concept in a visual manner that gives substantial written context.

Sources:

Words of Fire, ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins

"The Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves," by Angela Davis

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From Double Jeopardy To Intersectionality: Understanding the Complexities of Black Women's Positionality Within Systems of Oppression

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From Double Jeopardy To Intersectionality: Understanding the Complexities of Black Women's Positionality Within Systems of Oppression

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The Kimberle Crenshaw video we watched that coined the phrase "Say Her Name" (and the misappropriation of the phrase that has ensued) frames the discussion I hope to carry in my paper. Focusing on the specific axis of oppression created when sexism, classism, and racism (specifically anti Blackness) conspire, I hope to use this concept to trace the ways Black women's specific experiences are uniquely violent and silencing in ways that groups like Black men or white women don't undergo. Using Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,  Their Eyes Were Watching God, and drawing from Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother, I will first point to specific ways the text engages or displays the concept, including the explicit circumstances of characters as well as more conceptual engagements with the topic.
Thinking about the way the idea of intersectionality has come out of a line of Black Feminist thinking and Scholarship, I also want to investigate the texts within the context of their creation and see how they paint the development of this idea about intersecting axes of privilege and oppression as it concerns Black women. Just as theoretical frameworks have evolved to analyze the place of Black women in society, so has literature. I want to put the texts by Black women writers we've read in conversation with the conversations Black women in academic and literary circles were having about their agency, place in society, and experiences as "doubly" othered individuals.
My guiding questions are:

- What are specific challenges or circumstances  that figures/characters like Janice and Linda face that should be considered from an intersectional lens that prioritizes Black women's positionality and risk for violence?
How does their treatment compare to the Black male or white female characters in the texts?
-Taking these obstacles into consideration, how did the Black women in these texts reckon with this difference- did they notice, and how did they react?
- In what ways are these texts reflective of larger conversations about Black women's ontology and epistemology? How did they relate to the theories or mindsets relevant at the time of their conception? What about to our contemporary analysis?

Preliminary Bibliography
Beale, Frances M. "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female." Third World Women's Alliance, New York, 1969.

Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, no. 6, Stanford Law Review, 1991, pp. 1241–99, https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039.

Fulton, Minor, DoVeanna S.. Speaking Power : Black Feminist Orality in Women's Narratives of Slavery, State University of New York Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/trincoll/detail.action?docID=3407840.

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I will be completing my final project in the form of a paper.

I have solidified the main texts from the class that I will be using: The Venus and Beloved, as well as accompanying articles.

I want to relate these texts to contemporary connections, as I mentioned, and this starts with the lack of inclusion toward Black women in the #MeToo movement (hence the emergence of We, As Ourselves) and the presence of pop culture icons such as Nicki Minaj and Beyonce resculpting perception of the Black body.

Now having seen Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer emotion picture, I think I would want to integrate her work and representation of characters Jane and Zen’s clear displayal of affection and love tying into the idea of bodily love and autonomy. “Dirty” in this society is owning and claiming your body.

I am currently in the process of sorting through these pop culture icons and references to see which best fit my upcoming paper and want to expand my source list based on these choices.

Mako Fitts Ward. “Queen Bey and the New Niggerati: Ethics of Individualism in the Appropriation of Black Radicalism.” Black Camera, vol. 9, no. 1, Indiana University Press, 2017, pp. 146–63, https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera.9.1.09.

Gilman, Sander L. “Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 1, The University of Chicago Press, 1985, pp. 204–42, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343468.

Wingfield, Adia Harvey, and Melinda Mills. “Viewing Videos: Class Differences, Black Women, and Interpretations of Black Femininity.” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 19, no. 3/4, Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender & Class Journal, 2012, pp. 348–67, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43497503.

Rogers, Jamie Ann. “Diasporic Communion and Textual Exchange in Beyoncé’s <em>Lemonade</Em> and Julie Dash’s <em>Daughters of the Dust</Em>.” Black Camera, vol. 11, no. 2, Indiana University Press, 2020, pp. 130–57, https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera.11.2.07.

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I spent some time reassessing my proposal and, although I want to focus on sacrifice, there is a presence of generational trauma that I cannot ignore. I am aiming to focus on the sacrifices made by mothers and, perhaps, the mothers before them – while also connecting these sacrifices to generational trauma. Maybe the sacrifice and the trauma will balance one another as examples of intent versus result? I think in my initial proposal I was too focused on the term “supernatural,” and relied too heavily on connecting “supernatural” to living connections. I believe I will continue to reference Toni Morrison’s Beloved in my paper, but I am not sure if referencing Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl will “fit” the paper I am hoping to mold. I think Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun will provide more grounding. I also want to highlight some of the sacrifices found in Zadie Smith’s Intimations but, I also know it will be quite difficult to find articles to reference as support. I hope to find the intersectionality between sacrifice and trauma and, as a longshot, might introduce the “supernatural” as a generational trauma reference. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I have also updated the working bibliography, with a few more secondary sources listed below.

Preliminary Bibliography –

Andrew Hock Soon Ng. “Toni Morrison’s <em>Beloved</Em>: Space, Architecture, Trauma.” Symplokē, vol. 19, no. 1–2, University of Nebraska Press, 2011, pp. 231–45, https://doi.org/10.5250/symploke.19.1-2.0231.

Bouson, J. Brooks. Quiet As It’s Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison. SUNY Press, 2000. EBSCOhost,

https://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=1a3500ae-5732-4713-a0f1-af8d12c5ad0d%40sdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#AN=44170&db=nlebk

Jesser, Nancy. “Violence, Home, and Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” African American Review, vol. 33, no. 2, [Indiana State University, Saint Louis University, African American Review, African American Review (St. Louis University)], 1999, pp. 325–45, https://doi.org/10.2307/2901282.

LI, STEPHANIE. “Motherhood as Resistance in Harriet Jacobs’s <em>Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl</Em>.” Legacy, vol. 23, no. 1, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, pp. 14–29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25684492.

Putnam, Amanda. “Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, and A Mercy.” Black Women, Gender + Families, vol. 5, no. 2, University of Illinois Press, 2011, pp. 25–43, https://doi.org/10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.2.0025.

Rody, Caroline. “Toni Morrison’s Beloved: History, ‘Rememory,’ and a ‘Clamor for a Kiss.’” American Literary History, vol. 7, no. 1, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 92–119, http://www.jstor.org/stable/489799.

Shapiro, Barbara. “The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Understanding Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Sula: Selected Essays and Criticisms of the Works by the Nobel Prize-Winning Author, edited by Solomon O. Iyasere and Marla W. Iyasere, Whitston, 2000, pp. 155–172. EBSCOhost,

https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=4d102ef3-9027-496a-9366-f51667eba872%40redis&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#AN=2000056932&db=mzh.

Story, Ralph D. “SACRIFICE AND SURRENDER: SETHE IN TONI MORRISON’S ‘BELOVED.’” CLA Journal, vol. 46, no. 1, College Language Association, 2002, pp. 21–29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44325135.

Visser, Irene. “Fairy Tale and Trauma in Toni Morrison’s ‘Home.’” MELUS, vol. 41, no. 1, [Oxford University Press, Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS)], 2016, pp. 148–64, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44155224.

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For my project, I want to explore how clothing, as well as other textural features (colors, fabrics, quilts, art in general), correspond with self-love. In my research, I seek to answer a host of questions: for instance, how does fashion relate to bodily ownership and care? How does clothing relate to one’s claiming of sexuality and self-governance? Are there repeated styles from the periods of slavery to modern days, and what does this reflect about black women’s connections to the past? I will mainly use Beloved and The Color Purple to guide my research. While I have yet to find such pieces, I want to focus on certain moments of fashion and artistic works that reflect my questions. To add a contrast to these points, I will also examine Venus and the significance of nudity/lack of fashion. Does nudity represent similar themes as fashion does (claiming sexuality and self-love); if so, how do these themes manifest? Overall, I want to present my material as a gallery, reminiscent of a fashion exposé. Though I don’t quite know how I will create my gallery, I’m considering making a blog or website to organize it.

Preliminary Bibliography:

Davis, Angela Y., and Joy James. The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Blackwell, 2008.

FORD, TANISHA C. Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul.
UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA PR, 2017.

Gateward, Frances K., and John Jennings. The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art. Rutgers University Press, 2015.

Lynch, Annette, and Katalin Medvedev. Fashion, Agency, and Empowerment: Performing Agency, Following Script. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020.

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The format that I’d like to commit to for the Final Project will be a traditional academic/conference paper, which will analyze the connections between black women and nature, particularly from within the novels, Beloved and Kindred.  I would like to capture specific moments in each piece where black women begin mapping their physical environments, and to therefore make sense of themselves within those environments. I would like to point to the placemaking of the natural world in both black women's existence and survival.

The purpose of this analysis is to reroute our understanding of how landscapes may have become a way in which race is read rhetorically, i.e. what has become “ghettoized,” and who do we place implicitly within this frame.  I aim to emphasize an ecological argument based on a sense of purpose and belonging of black women in, for example, the “woods,” and to locate the axis of joy in the face of resistance as the locus of that belonging.  A preliminary inspiration for this research comes from the “black hiking groups” made visible on Tik Tok this year, in conjunction with the Black Joy Project (thank you, Anthony!), to challenge bias(es) of who black women are told to be, and where.

In addition to more research covering what we consider to be the present-day American “ghetto” vs. American pastoral, I aim to incorporate these preliminary sources:

Albano, Alessandra. “Nature and Black Femininity in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Tell My Horse.” Journal of African American Studies, vol. 24, no. 1, Mar. 2020, pp. 23–36. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s12111-019-09451-9.

Brahinsky, Rachel, et al. “Race, Space, and Nature: An Introduction and Critique.” Antipode, vol. 46, no. 5, Nov. 2014, pp. 1135–1152. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/anti.12109.

Dunning, Stefanie K.  Black to Nature.  University Press of Mississippi, 22 April 2021,   https://www.google.com/books/edition/Black_to_Nature/JEEoEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Hass, Robert. "Black Nature." Ecotone, vol. 1 no. 2, 2012, p. 32-45. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ect.2012.0005.

Kelley, Elleza.  “’Follow the Tree Flowers’: Fugitive Mapping in Beloved.”  Antipode, vol. 53, no. 1, 2020, pp. 181-199. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12679[BN(1] .

Kirk, Jessica P.  Mapping Livable Geographics: Black Radical Praxis Within and Beyond Toronto. 2020. University of Toronto, Master’s Thesis. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/openview/4497dbb5f7b36c8ce4fd1ac97ccfd3f5/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y.

Mapp, Rue. “Doubling Down on Black Joy in Nature.” Bay Nature, vol. 17, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 44–46. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,uid&db=aph&AN=120576592&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Tichavakunda, Antar A.  “Black Joy on White Campuses: Exploring Black Students’ Recreation and Celebration at a Historically White Institution.”  The Review of Higher Education, vol. 44, no. 3, 2021, pp. 297-324. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/rhe.2021.0003.

Walker, Alice.  “In Search of our Mother’s Gardens.” Within the Circle: An Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present, edited by Angelyn Mitchell, Duke University Press, 1994, pp. 401-409.

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Wearing Your Love

In the deceptive world of fashion and beauty, Black style has historically been vilified, over-sexualized, caricatured, and stolen. Westernized standards of beauty have long been the ideal, further undermining Black fashion. Drawing on Sonya Renee Taylor’s My Body is Not an Apology, I will discuss how the preservation and reconstruction of Black style can lead to a discovery of radical self-love. To complement the content, I plan to create a magazine displaying my findings. I will also examine the concurrent intentions of expressing radical self-love and political ideologies through fashion. As political systems disempower Black bodies, clothing becomes a form of defiance and radicalization. We see the political weaponization of Black fashion on college campuses, where students adopt Black Panther and soul styles to protest the systemic racism of their schools. In another spread, I will argue how pants symbolize both sexual and individual liberation, as well as challenge patriarchal structures. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer will ground my findings, as both Walker and Monae use pants to reconstruct Black womanhood. Similar to pants, Black cosmetics and hair represent the intersectionality of beauty. As Tanisha Ford’s Liberated Threads and Annette Lynch and Katalin Medvedevs’ The Beauty Divide… touch on, there is no “right way” to beauty. Therefore, people should be able to choose how to wear their hair, whether it’s straightened or an Afro. The same freedom applies to makeup; makeup, as Medvedev proves, is a creative expression of radical self-love. What unifies all of these elements of style (pants, hair, makeup, etc.) is that they are tools for visibility. Visibility is a theme I want to highlight in my magazine. The bold, unapologetic styles and fabrics Black women wear demand people to watch and listen. As people constantly silence Black voices, clothing can challenge this stigma. Even nudity—the absence of fashion—demands attention. Nudity does not only appeal to voyeurism (Venus); the exploration of the body leads to discoveries of sexuality and autonomy (The Color Purple). Framing my project as a magazine, I hope to further create visibility in offering Black women representation. Since Black women receive little-to-no representation in the fashion industry, I want to subvert the racist narrative that Blackness cannot equal beauty. I will do so by contesting the stereotypes (“jezebel,” “mammy,” etc.), othering (Black beauty being “exotic”), and theatricalization that target Black women. As I previously stated, there is no “right way” to beauty. Beauty can be found in the ways we acknowledge and accept the complexities of our own bodies and style, as well as in those around us.

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In Hazel Carby’s Reconstructing Womanhood, she writes about the ways that ‘true womanhood’ for Black women happened to be created in opposition to White women. I use Carby’s work as the foundation for understanding how Black women’s identity in today's world, has been seriously impacted by the stereotypes created by White men during slavery. Although Black women were given very little autonomy or agency over their own lives, they were still held responsible for the horrible ways they were treated. Erasure of Black women’s identity does not only exist within the White gaze; however, I argue that it is created in the White gaze due to slavery, but it is critiqued by Black men as well. Black women had to fight within their own communities to be recognized as Black scholars who had the ability to write about their own Black experience. I argue that slavery shaped the ways that society views Black women and I plan to uncover through Black women’s literature how the need to create identity is rooted in the effects of slavery.

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The erasure of Black representation in Puerto Rican families--in Borikén and the U.S.A--is a result of fear mongering and Eurocentric ideologies. 20th century anti-Black legislation, media and sentiments catalyzed the evasion of Black identity in Puerto Rican communities. This psychic terrorism by the U.S. spurred changemakers like Nell Larson and Marta Morena Vega to use literature as a gateway for embracing African ancestry in the Americas. They both ponder the effects of colorism, light-skin privilege, phenotypic stigmatization, and inaccessible family trees on descendants of the African-American diaspora. There works will be cross-examined with Black feminist methods for embracing the power of self-definition, ideated in publications by Sami Schalk and Patricia Hill Collins. Through a collection of personal experiences, anthropology of African-Boricua history, 19th to 20th century U.S. Census statistics, theoretical and artistic writing by Black women this autoethnography highlights the historical tethers binding the Black and Puerto Rican experiences in the U.S; to promote “love-practice” as an effective means of prioritizing self-naming over the racial identifications predetermined by anti-Black U.S. legislation, social relations and hierarchical categorization.

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The subjugation of Black women’s bodies is a historically rooted practice, perpetuated through the history of slavery and disproportionately high current day statistics of sexual violence against Black women. Even in social movements like #MeToo that front the reclaiming of women’s bodies from sexual assault and abuse cases, Black women are vastly underrepresented and unconsidered, further contributing to the repression of Black women’s assertion of bodily autonomy, agency, and power. Although, through contemporary representations of the Black female body, I will focus on the perpetual healing from the wounds of domestic violence, slavery, and white supremacy through expressed bodily autonomy of modern pop culture figures.

I will first preface this topic with a contextual background of the perceptions of Black women’s bodies, through both historically grounded and present representations and then repression of sexuality and agency. I’d here mention the representation of a “dirty” female body as a metaphor for the realities of present day perception- using Janelle Monae’s “Dirty Computer” as a comparison point for both our present day society that deems “dirty” in this society is owning and claiming your body, then contrasted with the post-credit scene of Monae eluding this distorted and repressive society and emerging powerful. This main idea starts as perception and then is able to transcend into this reclaiming of ‘body’ through Monae’s piece first as a transition point, then into a scene from The Venus and Sona Renee Taylor’s “The Body is Not An Apology.” These pieces will lead to some of my final paragraphs, where I will analyze and debrief the reaction to these conditions the emergence of the We, As Ourselves movement and Beyonce as an icon. Beyonce, here, is emphasized as reversing the standard of art as commodified, and is able to transform this attention, money, and power into her own personal empire: "Beyoncé's fetishized Black feminist radicalism has transformed the politics of social movements into a set of commodities that ultimately sustain her personal empire” (Fittz Ward, 148). This reclaiming of power, through these representations, shows that the question of agency and complacency is still very relevant in works of Beyonce and Lizzo: two figures of whom claim this power with their poise and clear expression of bodily love, sexuality, and autonomy.

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Black resistance to the dominant white expressions of sexuality and gender has taken multiple forms from the 19thcentury up to the modern day. In what specific ways has black female sexuality in America changed over this timeframe? Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, and Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer tackle this question through their usage of an enslaved woman gaming their financial situation and sexuality for more advanced freedoms, a stark comparison of slave abuse and Civil Rights era womanhood, and a visual story documenting the oppressive normative culture of Puritanical white heteronormativity on the black community, respectively. I will link these three texts, alongside scholarly works from each era and scientific data about white views of black women, to create a timeline of black sexuality from the world of Parks’ Venus to Monáe’s Dirty Computer. The empowerment, dominant cultural views of black sexuality, and discriminations will be laid out and dissected to draw out the ways that black women have owned their personal sexuality against oppressive class, race, gender, and sexual barriers.

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Generational trauma has been a constant theme in our readings this semester. There is the acknowledgment of impact from lived trauma, but there is also the fear of continuing that trauma into the next generation. Toni Morrison’s Beloved grapples with both sequences, and one constant that remained was sacrifice. My continued aim is to isolate and identify the moments where survival becomes compromised. Something I have noticed in our readings, whether it is an article connecting to a theme in a play or stories written by one of our authors, is the maternal instinct to protect. The instinct has been portrayed differently, and I think I am most interested in finding out how these moments interact with the audience differently. What is the underlying message being shared other than protecting? I recently rented Analyzing the Different Voice by Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber from the campus library, and there is a chapter dedicated to Morrison’s novel. With a chapter title reading, “The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” I aim to answer this question – how much of herself can she give before there’s nothing else to take? An abstract question circling back to the impact of a mother; the foundational love transcribed from kin to kin, accompanied by the foundational trauma inscribed. My goal is to answer these questions and build a structured argument that recognizes generational trauma, maternal love, and the ways they not only accompany one another but also offer different messages from our authors.

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Hi everyone! If anyone wants to take a look at my magazine, here's the link to it:

https://issuu.com/jillschuc/docs/magazine.pptx

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Read Wear Your Love: A Digital Magazine by jillschuc on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!