Proposed Topic for Final paper or project & preliminary questions by Professor Diana Paulin https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7 en-us 2022-10-19 21:47:15 UTC 2022-12-06 23:46:37 UTC hello@padlet.com Representations of Color in Beloved msimons31 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2365909298 - Do any specific colors recur throughout Beloved? And do those colors recur to represent the same or similar themes? Do these colors that correlate with themes follow “traditional” ideas around color? (red=trauma, green=growth)
- Does Morrison use specific colors to represent specific characters? Similarly to colors and themes, do colors and people ever collide and relate? If so, how does this influence how the reader sees that person? (I think an analysis of both descriptions of skin color and other colors.)
- Morrison mentions that Beloved is not a particularly colorful work, so when color appears it is very significant. That being said, are there any specific scenes that are intentionally not colorful? What is Morrison trying to portray in these scenes?]]> 2022-11-02 02:12:57 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2365909298 -In what ways do Toni Morrison write on the love politics tradition on Black feminism? In what ways do she differ? felipedelacruz2 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367083461 2022-11-02 17:19:29 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367083461 How do race, gender, and sexuality interact in Beloved in order to Morrison's story? felipedelacruz2 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367084789 2022-11-02 17:20:20 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367084789 Possible Topic: How does Toni Morrison construct the emotional environment around and against the built environment in Beloved? I.e.: porch scenes, Bluestone Road, the upstairs vs. downstairs of the house. Questions: What spaces act as barriers to entry? (physical or emotional)Which spaces are gendered? How do different characters interact with the same spaces differently? magsamaral8 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367086046 2022-11-02 17:21:06 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367086046 How does Audre Lorde's "eroticism" appear in Beloved? felipedelacruz2 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367089346 2022-11-02 17:23:07 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367089346 Love as a Catalyst in Beloved https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367165150 - Morrison definitively includes love as an overarching theme throughout her novel and it appears to take many different shapes and forms. What are these different types of love and how do they contribute to the development of each character? 
- Does Morrison include a specific Lesson or moral pertaining to her use of love throughout Beloved? if so what do you believe she is trying to convey to the reader? Are there multiple messages she is trying to manifest? 
-  One of the Main events of the story is Sethe's use of the handsaw to take the life of her newborn. This action was ultimately driven by Sethe's strong force of love. What are some instances where love is exhibited as a driving force for other major events in Beloved? in these other examples, is Morrison explicit with depicting love as the main motivation? ]]> 2022-11-02 18:08:45 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367165150 Healing/ Self Love in Beloved ksablone1 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367350979 Many of the characters in Beloved are shown to have their own trauma that they are healing from. How does Morrison present this journey for each of the different characters?
 What steps in the healing journey are presented in Beloved?
I think Morrison also depicts this notion of truth (learning the truth, and acknowledging the truth) as a way to move forward towards healing (Sethe and Paul D interaction). How many forms of healing can there be? What other ways does Morrison depict as part of the moving forward and healing process? A good intersection here with Sing, Unburied, Sing. 
Morrison also uses Baby Suggs’ teachings of self-love as a form of healing. What is she saying about looking to others, and looking to our elders as guidance in navigating hardships? And further, Why is self love so important in the context of Beloved? 
]]> 2022-11-02 20:36:32 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367350979 Post-Apocalyptic Fiction ryanallen9 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367356896 In my final research paper, I plan to analyze Beloved through the lens of black women’s speculative (esp. post-apocalyptic) fiction. What is the meaning of “apocalypse” and how might Sethe’s experience constitute a version of it comparable to for instance, the implied ecological disaster underpinning Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel, The Road? These are stories of survival – both physical and psychological - in the aftermath of an earth-shattering disaster (in the case of Beloved, this might be slavery in general or Beloved’s death in particular). Civilization, for all intents and purposes, has collapsed (or for some, may have never existed) – and nearly any discernable marker of stability (ex. the family structure) along with it. What do these contrasting versions of “apocalypse” have to say about the American past, present, and future? How do the stylistic and narrative conventions of the post-apocalyptic genre contribute towards this/these argument(s). How do the two authors engage with (or not engage with) the issue of race and its significance to a catastrophically damaged world? ]]> 2022-11-02 20:42:54 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367356896 Intergenerational Trauma gw9nwt2wsc https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367410963 The middle passage tore families away from their homes, communities, livelihoods, and destroyed their families. Morrison intentionally conflates time and person in the characters of Beloved and Sethe to confront the latent trauma stemming from that crime specifically and white supremacy ultimately. How does the trauma begin to be healed for Sethe? Does Sethe offer a model of healing for those living with the trauma of racism today? What are the specific devices Morrison uses to elevate the meaning from mere plot to the symbolic? For instance, can we draw resonance from the mythological component Morrison adds to her characters? ]]> 2022-11-02 21:49:41 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367410963 Possible topics keyshamatthews https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367454248  Radical Self Love & Forced Motherhood

I would like to explore the effects of trauma and memory or "rememory" and this idea of radical self love. When Paul D finds Sethe lying in the bed and she says "She was my best thing" and he replies with "You're your best thing Sethe, you are." I think I would like to explore how slavery effects one's self identity and how this idea of radical self love is a explored through a lens of trauma and being haunted. Also the idea of motherhood. What are Sethe's true feelings towards her own mother? What has shaped her own relation to her children? ]]> 2022-11-02 22:55:01 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2367454248 3 possible articles/texts, or authors I plan to consult https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2376848985 Authors: Julie Nash, Belle Hooks,
Articles/ texts: All about Love : New Visions,
Love in the Time of Death, Black Feminism Reimagined, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : Love ]]> 2022-11-09 14:01:12 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2376848985 Possible works felipedelacruz2 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2376928025 Bell hooks: All About Love, The Will to Change, and Communion: The Female Search For Love, Sisters Of The Yam

A Love Ethic for Black Feminisms: The Necessity of Love in Black Feminist Discourses and Discoveries


]]> 2022-11-09 14:43:58 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2376928025 3 Possible Articles/Texts/Authors to Consult msimons31 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377485402 -"Reading Red: The Troping of Trauma in Toni Morrison's Beloved" by Florian Bast (2011)

-"Non-Verbal Communication: The Use of Chromatics in Toni Morrison’s Novels" by Swati Samantaray (2013)

-"Toni Morrison and the Natural World: An Ecology of Color" by Anissa Janine Wardi (2021)]]> 2022-11-09 20:27:03 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377485402 Possible Sources ksablone1 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377540903 Krumholz, Linda. “The Ghosts of Slavery: Historical Recovery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” African American Review, vol. 26, no. 3, 1992, pp. 395–408. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3041912. 

Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Casebook by William L. Andrews and Nellie Y. McKay
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Q56dJ8CoY4UC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=healing+in+beloved+&ots=NIv4BNvKHk&sig=tVGJNK-8jsULJV250NL_-qOwd68#v=onepage&q=healing%20in%20beloved&f=false

Franco, Dean J. "What We Talk about When We Talk about Beloved." MFS Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 52 no. 2, 2006, p. 415-439. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/mfs.2006.0045.
]]> 2022-11-09 21:21:49 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377540903 Potential Sources ryanallen9 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377564041 1)    Wisker, Gina, “Troublesome Reading: Story and Speculation in African-American and African-Originated Women’s Writing. Resurrecting the Past, Re-imagining the Future” in Women Writers and Experimental Narratives, (New York; Palgrave Macmillian, 2021), 171-187.
2)    Payne, Mark, Flowers of Time: On Postapocalyptic Fiction, (Princeton, NJ; Princeton UP, 2020)
3)    Pesch, Joseph, “’Beloved': Toni Morrison's Post-Apocalyptic Novel,” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, vol. 20, 1993
]]> 2022-11-09 21:48:00 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377564041 Possible sources keyshamatthews https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377613632 1) Wyatt, Jean. “Giving Body to the Word: The Maternal Symbolic in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” PMLA, vol. 108, no. 3, 1993, pp. 474–88. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/462616. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022.

2) WYATT, JEAN. “Maternal Language and Maternal History in Beloved.” Love and Narrative Form in Toni Morrison’s Later Novels, University of Georgia Press, 2017, pp. 19–44. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1g2km9c.5. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022.

3) George, Sheldon. “Approaching the ‘Thing’ of Slavery: A Lacanian Analysis of Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved.’” African American Review, vol. 45, no. 1/2, 2012, pp. 115–30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23783440. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022.]]> 2022-11-09 22:50:30 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377613632 magsamaral8 https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377616196 2022-11-09 22:54:17 UTC https://padlet.com/professordianapaulin/6z85khz7dsurh2b7/wish/2377616196