Golden Apples

There were a lot of big and interesting ideas in the excerpts of The Souls of Black Folk that we read. I feel like these chapters brought together a lot of ideas on which we’ve been working. Doubleness appeared often - not just between the Veil and the other world, but in the divergence of...

The Unshakable Descendants

The characterization of the black child, is something which particularly struck me in my reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Jayna Brown’s piece. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin the drama between Ophelia and Topsy, is whether she can enact an education for her, this is reminiscent of Brown’s argument that Topsy is “drawn in Stowe’s novel...

Sexuality in Black Female Performance

Reading about the various iterations of Topsy, I was struck by just how often she was played not only by a white woman, but a fully grown white woman. In fact, the Caroline Howard, who played Topsy in the original iteration of Aiken's popular adaptation, performed the role for years. What were the effects of...

An Overflowing Vessel

Post # 3 - Uncle Tom Week 1 In this week’s reading, I was most struck with Topsy being referred to as “an empty vessel” in which Ophelia could pour values and education. This is particularly resonant in Stowe’s version, but appears in Aiken and Burnot’s adaptations to a certain extent as well. St. Clare...

The Liminal Panorama

In our previous seminar, the concept of performance and liminality really stuck with me and it was something I could see cropping up in Daphne Brooks The Escape Artist. The box itself in Henry Brown’s narrative denotes a place of liminality. It is literally liminal, as Henry Brown is both free through his escape, but...

Tyranny of Theives

For my post on the Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown I decided to focus on how Henry, even from a very young age, learned about and witnessed the performance and thievery of his master. He recounts that as a toddler his mother would sit him on her lap “and, pointing to the...

Three Traps: On Making a Strong Textual Analysis Argument

Common Pitfalls of Scholars' Close Reading and Textual Analysis Arguments 1-Beyond the Scope of the Text: One of the common traps for young and old scholars is making claims about the text that ultimately go beyond the scope of what we could ever prove with that one text. Examples:  This book shows that black people...

Do I Have a Good Thesis?

Overview of Thesis Statements for a Textual Analysis Paper: The thesis statement is usually found in the introduction, along with an opening or hook, and sometimes a detailed argument road map.  Indeed the most important task of the introduction in an academic paper is to layout your thesis statement.  While you may actually arrive at...

What’s a Logical Fallacy?

Imaged accessed at: https://michelerosenthal.com/portfolio/logical-fallacies/ image accessed at: https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2015/11/videos-and-poster-explaining-logical.html

Argumentation

"Argumentation" refers to how well (convincingly) you layout the text-based details and reasoning for your claim and explain the possible stakes of your claim.  The two primary areas I look for when assessing the strength of  your argument are: 1- the clarity and effectiveness of how you organize or layout your argument.   -Do you provide your...