For Who the River Carries: Marginalised Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Literature

<p>This thesis examines the representation of rivers from marginalised American authors of the twentieth-century. American rivers are notably diverse and variable natural features, and as symbols they offer extensive metaphorical potential. Rivers also hold a rich literary history in America, notably in the work of canonical nineteenth-century writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain. The idealised depictions found in the work of these four authors act as a foundation which the marginalised writers of the following century both develop and subvert. The selected marginalised writers fall into three overlapping categories, to each of which is devoted a chapter. To examine those marginalised by economy and class, I have turned to Cormac McCarthy’s 1979 novel Suttree and the poetry of James Wright. Both concern themselves with poverty, river pollution, theology, suicide, and the desolation of American idealism. In my chapter on African American writing, Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved and selected poems by Sterling A Brown, Audre Lorde, and Margaret Walker are the central texts. These works look to the river and find racial history within its current, evoking varied responses surrounding memory, trauma, creative expression, and recontextualisation. The final chapter explores William S. Burroughs’s 1987 novel The Western Lands and the work of Minnie Bruce Pratt. By “queering nature,” the river becomes both a bitter reminder of their marginalisation and a hopeful symbol of utopia and unity. Together, these texts and the rivers they represent demonstrate the disjuncture between the privileged and marginalised in America, calling for greater consideration of what we deem “American” and why.</p>

For Who the River Carries: Marginalised Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Literature

<p>This thesis examines the representation of rivers from marginalised American authors of the twentieth-century. American rivers are notably diverse and variable natural features, and as symbols they offer extensive metaphorical potential. Rivers also hold a rich literary history in America, notably in the work of canonical nineteenth-century writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain. The idealised depictions found in the work of these four authors act as a foundation which the marginalised writers of the following century both develop and subvert. The selected marginalised writers fall into three overlapping categories, to each of which is devoted a chapter. To examine those marginalised by economy and class, I have turned to Cormac McCarthy’s 1979 novel Suttree and the poetry of James Wright. Both concern themselves with poverty, river pollution, theology, suicide, and the desolation of American idealism. In my chapter on African American writing, Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved and selected poems by Sterling A Brown, Audre Lorde, and Margaret Walker are the central texts. These works look to the river and find racial history within its current, evoking varied responses surrounding memory, trauma, creative expression, and recontextualisation. The final chapter explores William S. Burroughs’s 1987 novel The Western Lands and the work of Minnie Bruce Pratt. By “queering nature,” the river becomes both a bitter reminder of their marginalisation and a hopeful symbol of utopia and unity. Together, these texts and the rivers they represent demonstrate the disjuncture between the privileged and marginalised in America, calling for greater consideration of what we deem “American” and why.</p>

Céspedes y la colonialidad del archivo: historias de negritud y fuga en la modernidad española peninsular

Las actas del proceso inquisitorial que se produjo en Toledo entre los años 1587 y 1589 contra la persona de Céspedes da pie a este artículo. En primer lugar, el artículo realiza una revisión de cómo este archivo ha sido leído por parte de la historiografía y realiza una crítica a estas lecturas por la colonialidad de estas miradas. En segundo lugar, el artículo propone una lectura que pone en primer plano o que se centra en aspectos no analizados del archivo que tienen que ver con la historia racial de la España de la Edad Moderna y su relación problemática con la negritud y la esclavitud, tanto en el pasado como en el presente. The minutes of the inquisitorial process that took place in Toledo between the years 1587 and 1589 against the person of Céspedes give rise to this article. Firstly, the article reviews how this archive has been read by historiography and makes a criticism of these readings due to the coloniality of these views. Secondly, the article proposes a reading that foregrounds or focusing on unanalyzed aspects of the archive that have to do with the racial history of Spain in the Modern Age and its problematic relationship with blackness and slavery, both in the past and in the present.

Why We Need a National CROWN Act

Discrimination and intersecting forms of oppression directed at Black women influence how they look, live, work, interact with others, and even view their bodies and identities. Black hair has been and remains a target of this discrimination and oppression by obligating Black women to strive toward White beauty norms. Still under consideration in several states, the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act provides a legislative intervention to protect Black women (and men) from hair discrimination at work, during school, and as they go about their daily lives. This article examines the politics affecting Black hair. The data for this study came from semi-structured interviews with 22 Black women who define their hair as natural. The results indicate that racial history and stereotypes continue to create unachievable standards for Black hair; that Black women continue to encounter discrimination when embracing their natural hair; and that wearing Black natural hair is often an uplifting decision for the women who elect to do so. The fact that others continue to challenge and discriminate against Black natural in multiple venues confirms the need for a national CROWN Act.

Mysterious Travelers

Steve Ditko (1927–2018) is one of the most important contributors to American comic books. As the cocreator of Spider-Man and sole creator of Dr. Strange, Ditko made an indelible mark on American popular culture. Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity resets the conversation about his heady and powerful work. Always inward facing, Ditko's narratives employed superhero and supernatural fantasy in the service of self-examination, and with characters like the Question, Mr. A, and Static, Ditko turned ordinary superhero comics into philosophic treatises. Many of Ditko's philosophy-driven comics show a clear debt to ideas found in Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. Unfortunately, readers often reduce Ditko's work to a mouthpiece for Rand's vision. Mysterious Travelers unsettles this notion by theorizing a major strand of liberal thought yet to be explored in academic discourse. Conscripting the popular mind power and New Thought movements into the rhetoric of libertarianism and later, Reagan-era neoliberalism, Ditko’s work provides access to a “mystic liberalism” that leverages the so-called power of positive thinking for political and philosophic aims. Mysterious Travelers also provides a critical reexamination of Ditko’s “right to kill” for fictional characters as well as significant insights into the racial history of Dr. Strange.

Amidst pandemic and racial upheaval: Where Asian Americans Fit

As racial tensions flare amidst a global pandemic and national social justice upheaval, the centrality of structural racism has renewed old questions and raised new ones about where Asian Americans fit in U.S. politics. This paper provides an overview of the unique racial history of Asians in the United States and analyzes the implications of dynamic racialization and status for Asian Americans. In particular, we examine the dynamism of Asian Americans' racial positionality relative to historical shifts in economic-based conceptions of their desirability as workers in American capitalism. Taking history, power, and institutions of white supremacy into account, we analyze where Asian Americans fit in contemporary U.S. politics, presenting a better understanding of the persistent structures underlying racial inequality and developing a foundation from which Asian Americans can work to enhance equality.