Next semester, I’m teaching Alice Walker’s The Color Purple alongside a couple of her essays, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Ernest Gaines’ Of Love and Dust, and other works. Preparing for the class, I recently read Walker’s 1976 essay “Saving the Life That is Your Own: The Importance of Models in the Artist’s Life.” Walker wrote the essay in the mid-1970s, at a moment … Read More Writing Saves Lives
+ alice walker, banned books, carmen maria machado, ernest j gaines, martin luther king, jr, syllabus, toni morrison
Book bans and challenges are nothing new; however, over the past few years, with the rise of anti-LGBTQ legislation and “anti-woke” rhetoric that has led to various bills against the teaching of “divisive concepts,” these bans and challenges have increased dramatically. Of course, as PEN American points out, “Black and LGBTQ+ authors and books about race, racism, and LGBTQ identities have been disproportionately affected … Read More Banned Books Syllabus
+ A Very Large Expanse of Sea, Adrian Alphona, G. Willow Wilson, hussein rashid, Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, Tahereh Mafi, toni morrison
As you know, I typically choose a few new texts to teach each semester, mainly so I can expand my knowledge on topics that I may not be familiar with. I do it to educate myself as much as to educate my students. This semester, for my Multiethnic American Literature class, I chose to include Tahereh Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse of Sea and I selected … Read More Whiteness in “Ms. Marvel” and Tahereh Mafi’s “A Very Large Expanse of Sea”
This semester, I’m teaching Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” again, and every time I teach it something new stands out to me. I read and thought about Morrison’s story in connection with the relationship between the author and her audience. Morrison invites her audience to become a co-creator of the text, and in this manner the author and audience engage within a dialogic where they each … Read More Collaboration between the Author and Reader
+ Achille Mbembe, bergen, Norway, fulbright, fulbright award, hip hop, Hkeem, karpe, karpe diem, norway, pumba, toni morrison
In my previous post, I wrote about the Norway and Slavery research group that I started with a couple of colleagues at the University of Bergen. Today, I want to dig a little more into what I plan to do with my work on Norwegian hip hop, specifically Karpe’s work. Over the past few months, I have written multiple posts on artists such as … Read More What’s Next? Norwegian Hip Hop
Interminable Rambling 