Cathy Davidson

I felt the same way, Shelly. I also felt awe. How could one man possibly be so talented, so committed, over so many years? I also like it that the movie left in the suspicion, by Robeson’s son, that his father had been victimized by CIA-administered psychotics in Russia and then the actual fact that, in England, he was subjected to repeated…[Read more]

Hi Luis, This is brilliant! Comparing JC to the clown in Shakespeare AND minstrelsy feels spot on—and that it is both, is fascinating, child and jester, stereotypes and truth-sayers. I also think the comparison to Romeo and Juliet is apt–with race rather than family enmity making for “star-crossed lovers.” Your sensitivity to the nuance in a…[Read more]

Hi Charlene, thanks for this thoughtful blog post. I am intrigued by the complexity of historical voices we hear in both the von Eschen book and in the Robeson movie. It’s clear that communism had Black and white adherents and detractors, there was no unitary position, and that, as Robeson’s son notes, once confronted with Stalinism, his father…[Read more]

Hi Damele, Your post made me think again about the way Petry weaves in and out of stereotypes, almost like a chess game, where she knows exactly what each piece is, what it means, what it has means, and then she scrambles things, has the Knight move like a King, the Queen like a pawn . . . and it feels, for a little while, like a whole new game.…[Read more]

Hi Charlene, I am so pleased someone took on the term “mother” in the book and thanks, Luis, for reminding us it is never “her” or “my” but “the mother.” “The mother” is one of the oldest archetypes in all literature but Marshall deconstructs that archetype, helping us to see its origins, and the way poverty, ambition, immigrant status,…[Read more]

This is an incredibly interesting conversation across all of you–and exactly what these blogs and discussions are intended to do. Since we only meet for two hours, this allows us to explore pedagogical active learning methods in class and supplement those with more focused, detailed attentive readings out of class. The best of the blogs and…[Read more]

Hi Charlene, This is so thoughtful. I also love the way, near the end of The Narrows, Petry reverses this so now we go inside Bullock’s head and he both analyzes Jubine–and his wife. If she chides his morality, he blames his actions on her acquisitiveness. She wanted the fancy Danish modern house in the best part of town, not the old family…[Read more]

This is a brilliant blog post, Pedro, and I want to recommend everyone read it. With great adeptness, you link Browne’s concept of “absented presence” to critical readings and, interestingly, to Tan Confessions. If you are interested in developing this blog into a final paper for the course, it has the possibility to be publishing. I’m sure…[Read more]

Hi, Arelle, I like your question “who really wins in these situations?” and that might well be the tag line to Brown Girl, Brownstones if it were a movie. Marshall gives us a range of portraits of immigrants in America, a variety of ways to assimilate or fight assimilation, strive or refuse to be part of the striving. The ending so brilliantly…[Read more]

HI Shelly, I’m so interested in this Jefferson School of Social Science in NYC. At first, I thought you were talking about the Historically Black Jefferson School in Charlottesville that became a site of contestation after Brown V. Board of Education because it was not “desegregated” but specifically for African Americans. Conservatives had it…[Read more]

HI Dan,

I love this line: “But for me, Yesterday Will Make You Cry is, at its core, the story of a man – Jimmy – in search of intimacy, in search of love. ” I agree that, both before he is imprisoned and after, he is on this search and one of the ironies, deeply felt, in the book is that he finds that intimacy right as he is being rel…[Read more]

HI Damele,

Yes, I found Van Peebles introduction invaluable too. Important. I was also disturbed by the representation of Black characters but, in truth, in most white-authored novels, the depictions in 1952 would have been (a) either not there at all (in a totally segregated 1920s prison) or (b) far worse. There are friendships between…[Read more]

Hi Charlene,

I love this sentence: “In Chester Himes’ writing, Jimmy comes alive when he is in love, and so does Himes’ writing.” It really is as if Jimmy’s pulse quickens–and so does Himes’s–when he meets and falls in love with Rico. The attraction/repulsion is described with such honest passion. I don’t think I’ve ever read any…[Read more]

Hi Arelle,

I like your post too–and the insight that there is a tension between the “prison” and the “prison of the mind” and, I would add, how to save your mind, your heart, while being incarcerated, confined, thinking you may serve twenty years when you are barely twenty. Himes does that brilliantly. Thanks for your sensitive response. Best, Cathy

I love this insight, Luis: “Critiques of surveillance often fail to note its real danger: its arbitrariness.” Reading those FBI files, I had the sense that each FBI agent had a “job description” or even a “target” (in different senses). What was arbitrary was the severity of the intrusion into individual lives. For the FBI agent, it was a…[Read more]

Hi Charlene, Thanks for this and thanks for letting us know you wouldn’t be in class last night. As it turned out, neither Flora nor Chelsea were either. Please make sure you check in with Damele, the only one there, so your Group can move ahead. Your blog post is excellent and raises issues that I know we’ll be looking at again: “However,…[Read more]

HI Dan, Thanks for this. Maxwell focuses on Black writers who came under Hoover’s scrutiny. He was also obsessed with all Left-leaning writers (the Rosenbergs, of course), with gay writers, with academics. I hope we go back and look at some of the McCarthy hearings–they are as “ham fisted” as the accusations today: lives were lost, people…[Read more]

Thanks for such an evocative blog post, Arelle. You write: “It makes me wonder, what exactly the government feared by a liberated person of color? I want to know – is there is more than fear of communism or an uprising that fuels these investigations?” I think this will be an issue we think about and talk about all semester. Why does our g…[Read more]

Hi Luis, What a great writer you are! Even in a short post, your prose is really splendid and the thinking lively. I love this wry punch: “Government work can be risky indeed. ” I also agree that, being head of the FBI for fifty years, gave Hoover astonishing power, the “permanent government” through many changes in presidencies and many…[Read more]