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Eng239.5 week5
Matt Dube
Created on November 11, 2024
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eng239 week5
New Voices
Making ready to forget, and always coming backTo the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.
In week 1, we read works by the regionalists, who studied the specific features of particular landscapes to stitch the nation back together after the Civil War. At semester's end, we're looking at a new frame for different kinds of Americans-- ethnicity (mostly). As readers, we have the same goal: to understand how these people, who look different from us, who cook differently and speak differently, are at their root a lot like us.
Ending where we began
When we studied regional writers, we noticed how people were molded by physical geography. This week, we study writers who come from specific communities: Latinx, Asian American, more African-American perspectives, and LGBTQ+. Though America imagines itself in a black-white conflict, there's a much wider range of experiences. And one of the most positive developments in my lifetime has been hearing from those diverse communities. This week explores that.
In place of place, imagine community
vs
"Others" We'll see characters in the context of community. The individual is only as important as those who support them. We might see words in foreign languages or rituals and concepts that are unfamiliar. But they take their meaning from their role in the community.
Naturalists We saw characters as products of their environments. How were they stereotypes or representative? How was it possible to write about these unique settings in a language where the experiences would be authentic, but also understandable to readers who'd never been there?
These stories and poems can cover a wide range of experiences. But one recurring concern deals with the relationship between the writer or protagonist and her community. How does she understand how where she comes from formed her? How does she distinguish herself as an individual? It returns us to the great American challenge: how can we make something of ourselves without turning our back on where we came from.
The community struggle
Rich is incredibly important to our understanding of American lit, but almost belongs in week 4. Married to a man, Rich came out as a lesbian in her late 30s (early 1970s). Her marriage dissolved and she began a long period of exploration, a struggle visible in her poem "Diving into the Wreck." Her work there and after explores gendered spaces and histories in sustained detail.