Paper Topics | Spring 2021 | Paper 7
Due Friday, May 7, 5:00 p.m. Ask your conference leader where and how to submit your paper.
Target length: 1,800-2.000 words
1. Compare the addressee of Anne Spencer’s “Lady, Lady” with Toomer’s “Karintha.” (If you wish, you may focus solely on the verse pieces of this section of Cane.) What sort of relationship does each text claim to establish with the female figure to or about which it speaks? Are these female figures the object of a gaze that is identifiably male or female? Why is the appearance of these women so important?
2. Saidiya Hartman characterizes Wayward Lives as “an archive of the exorbitant, a dream book for existing otherwise” (xv). Discuss one or two other works on our syllabus this semester that might fit this description. What ideas about memory and history inform these archives? How do these texts seek to articulate visions of alternative social or political realities? Is there a risk that such a dream book may become a collection of nightmares?
3. W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey were both Black internationalists, who, in their leadership, activism, and writings, advocated for Black unity worldwide while opposing white supremacy as a global imperial formation. They were, however, deeply divided on the means to achieve Black social progress and self-determinism. Through an examination of Du Bois’ “Credo” and “The Souls of White Folks,” Garvey’s “Africa for Africans,” and UNIA’s “Declaration of the Rights of the Principles of the Negro Peoples of the World,” discuss the similarities and differences between their visions of Black empowerment.
4. Jean Toomer called Cane “a swan song” for the Black folk spirit. Through close readings of one piece from part one and one from part two of the book, discuss how Toomer expresses the experience of this loss in the context of racial violence in the South, the Great Migration, and industrial modernity in the North. Ground your argument in your analysis of narrative voice, imagery, point of view, and other formal aspects of the texts.
5. Both Jean Toomer’s “Kabnis” and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man end with the protagonists in an underground cellar. Compare the final scene in “Kabnis” with the “Epilogue” of Invisible Man, and discuss the significance of the cellar in these texts. What kind of new perspective and understanding does the space allow the protagonists to attain regarding the relationship of the Black artist to the collective identity and history? Consider narrative voice, structure, and the use of metaphor and symbolism in your analysis.
6. Many of the stories in Jean Toomer's Cane are concerned with the construction of masculinity. What does it mean to be considered a man (both internally and socially) in any one or two of the following stories: “Blood Burning Moon,” “Box Seat,” “Bona and Paul,” or “Kabnis.” You might want to think about how the construction of manhood in the story is inflected by the question of racial identity.
7. Towards the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is put on trial twice, once in the White men’s court and again by the Black men’s resentment at her for killing their friend. Present a close reading of the trial scene and discuss how the conflicts play out around the complex intersections of racial and gender differences. How does Hurston use narrative perspective and free indirect speech to reveal the attitudes of different groups of people?
8. Even before Tea Cake gets bitten by a rabid dog, Tea Cake, Joe Starks, and Logan Killicks are all described through numerous direct or indirect references to non-human animals. Analyze Hurston’s use of animal imagery in these parts of the novel. What do the animal metaphors convey about Janie’s relationship with these men and her conception of love and freedom?
9. In “Criteria of Negro Art,” Du Bois argues that “all Art is propaganda and ever must be,” partly in response to the Harlem issue of Survey Graphic and Alain Locke’s perspective on art and aesthetics in particular. Explain what Du Bois means by “propaganda,” as well as how Locke considers it possible for non-propagandistic art to exist. Discuss this question in relation to one of the works we have studied this semester, either from the Harlem (e.g., Lawrence’s Migration Series) or the Mexico City unit (e.g., one of Rivera’s murals).
10. Invisible Man addresses many of the issues discussed in essays and other documents we’ve studied. Analyze one major episode in Invisible Man using a framework based on other readings from the Harlem unit that focus on education, work, social inequalities, citizenship, or creativity and art. (Suggested episodes are the Battle Royal, Homer Barbee’s speech, the paint factory, the Brotherhood.) How is Ellison supporting, satirizing, or resisting ideas endorsed by others? A successful analysis will address the formal features that contribute to the tone of the episode.
11. Compare the content and rhetoric of Du Bois’ “Returning Soldiers” with the depiction of war veterans in Chapter 3 of Ellison’s Invisible Man. How does each illustrate the problems facing Black Americans after World War I? How are their messages similar and different?
12. In consultation with your conference leader, devise your own topic.