Sample answers from 2017/18 test

1)

This extract, from the first part of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”, is the first instance in which we are presented with a vision of metropolitan London, a setting which recurs throughout the poem. The barren soullessness of city life echoes through the landscape portrayed in lines 19-26: although in this section we have a more literal barren setting without life or the water which sustains it it could be argued that the multitude where “each man fixed his eyes before his feet” is similarly absent of vitality, with images of death also permeating this extract.

The plant imagery of lines 71 and 72 links back to the opening of the poem and the image of “breeding lilacs out of the dead land” (2-3), which references the ubiquitousness of desire and the pain that comes with it. In the given extract, images of life and death are juxtaposed again, perhaps referencing the myth of Hyacinth, already alluded to in the second stanza. In this myth she is accidentally killed by Apollo (who was in love with her) and subsequently names the flower after her - here linking with the blooming of a corpse.

“The Waste Land” is full of intertexts such as this, in part due to Eliot wanting to cement his place in the literary canon and demonstrate his knowledge of tradition, deemed of utmost importance in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” This prominence given to tradition is also echoed by Pound in his “A Few Don’ts of an Imagiste”, in which the canon’s significance is significantly stressed. Another intertext in this section of the poem is Dante’s “Inferno”, referenced in lines 63 and 64 - in the modern vision of a fragmented, apocalyptic world Dante’s vision of hell is a fitting choice, Eliot here not only demonstrating his knowledge of the literary canon, but asserting a certain Europeanness, that he strived for to the point of becoming a British citizen. Eliot also references English Renaissance dramatist John Webster’s The White Devil in line 74, whom he viewed to be one of the exceptional revenge tragedians of his period and particularly admiring his treatment of death. The reference to Baudelaire in the last line of the extract is yet another example of Eliot demonstrating his erudition - the poem is full of different languages, from Sanskrit to German and Greek, a challenge for the reader.

This fragmented puzzle of languages, extracts and images is in part a reflection of society at the time, and a technique used by many modernist writers. In the words of Peter Howarth, in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Poetry, early twentieth century society was “a recipe for personal and social disintegration” (10). Society was becoming increasingly secular, leading to the disappearance of communal religion, the First World War had been devastating (as referenced in line 62 with “I had not thought death had undone so many” and the bombarding worlds of advertising and media were on the rise. Whilst composing the poem, Eliot himself suffered a mental breakdown, this too contributing to the fragmented and gloomy societal outlook.

The morose masses of “so many” (ine 63) are a recurrent image of modernist poetry (for example paralleled in Pound’s “In A Station of the Metro”). In the poem Eliot goes on to visit the voices of some of the individuals who we could posit in subsequent parts of the poem make up this crowd, even here picking out individual voices and using quotation. The interaction between the speaker in this extract and Stetson is an echo of the war, the reference to Baudelaire perhaps alluding to camaraderie established in those times of struggle. The incorporation of quotations is also favoured by writers such as Marianne Moore, who similarly uses collage techniques and varying voices in her work. Fiona Shaw’s reading of “The Waste Land” is particularly helpful for demonstrating the use of multiple voices as she assumes accents which drive home the different speakers and alters the tone, emphasising conversational aspects - quite in contrast to Eliot’s own, flat, recordings of the poem. While not perhaps a political poem in such a way as Langston Hughes or others, Eliot certainty displays a certain discontent with society in its current form, apparent in the zombie-like nature of the crowd and the “sighs, short and infrequent” (64) that are mentioned.

This broken society, echoed in the broken, fragmented form of the poem, with its sordid imagery, barren landscapes and pervasive atmosphere of death is here illustrated by Eliot as he zooms out over the commuters of metropolitan London. An epic of sorts, a poem of its time and tradition, “The Waste Land” and its style encapsulates many of the aspects of both modern poetry and society.

2)

Across early twentieth century American literature, we see women artists finding their voices and simultaneously demonstrating the struggles that they have to go through to do so. From the 19th century paradigm of the “Angel in the house”, still struggled against in texts like Their Eyes Were Watching God (see Janie’s first and second marriages), rises the concept of the New Woman a threat to traditional notions of femininity and patriarchal power.

In Willa Cather’s “Flavia and Her Artists”, Frau Lichtenfeld inverts the passive female stereotype, being not only a female artist with her own voice as a writer, but also having  strong personality and peculiar appearance, presenting her as a “humorous caricature of a time honoured pose of the heroines of sentimental romance”, Cather directly criticising the traditional literary portrayal of women s virtuous. Moreover, with her “rolling baritone”, she breaks the feminine paradigm of silence, and is not only comical, but self-deprecating, demonstrating a strong sense of identity. In attributing to her quasi-masculine qualities in her size and gregariousness, as well as comparing her to a cavalier, Cather is perhaps suggesting that for female artists in the contemporary climate, it was necessary to assume masculine characteristics to some degree in order to be taken seriously.

Jemima Broadwood is presented as similarly masculine in Cather’s text, with her appearance compared to that of a “boy” and her assuming the male name “Jimmy”. This character encapsulates some of the ideas surrounding the new woman - her hair is cut short and she is an actress, a form of public person that women were not previously encouraged to assume. Aside from this, Cather creates ambiguity around Jemima’s sexuality, implying her queerness through her final encounter with Imogen, which is charged with a certain eroticism. This links to Cather’s own experience as a woman who had intimate relations with other women. Explicit references to Jimmy’s sexuality here would have been considered taboo in Cather’s era, hence her use of implicit suggestion.

In contrast to these strong, new women, Flavia is presented as a caricature of the female patrons of the arts who permeated the early twentieth century such as the Guggenheims, Whitneys and Vanderbilts, who collected (European) art and subsequently artists, to form literary and creative salons. Flavia’s preoccupation with art as a means of conferring status is satirised by Cather in the cynical tone of her story, for example when she says that Frau Lichtenfeld’s novels “were the talk of all Germany”, but appears not to have read them, their popularity more important than any personal connection created. Her need for validation is also emphasised when Imogen contradicts her and she colours “unbecomingly”. This reaches the height of its effect at the end of the story as Flavia takes to her bed ill as a result of her artists leaving the ironically named “House of Song”.

To return to the presentation of female artists here and to compare them with Eudora Welty’s short story, a trope that recurs in both texts is the gigantic woman artist. Frau Lichtenfeld is described by Cather as “over six feet”, with her “immense stature” as a “colossal woman”. In elevating her size, Cather is here perhaps commenting on the way that women artists were often perceived as threatening, due to their inversion of the status quo. In “June Recital”, when Miss Eckhart plays her piece during the storm, her corporeality is also elevated, her body compared to a “tree trunk” and her face to “a mountain” (300). Just as with Frau ichtenfeld’s loud voice, the volume of the piece is emphasised, although with this Eckhart this seems linked to self-repression, evident in Welty’s choice to describe the performance as something that “burst out, unwanted, exciting”. Indeed, the use of “unwanted” makes the performance seem almost some kind of expulsion of the abject in Kristevan terms, perhaps linked to the way in which female artists were often perceived negatively in this period.

Miss Eckhart also transcends the confines of gender, just as Jimmy and Frau Lichtenfeld do, while she is playing the piece - she ceases to be confined by femininity as her “face could have belonged to someone else - not even a woman necessarily.” As a woman dares to inhabit the creative world of the masculine artist with all its emotions, the children are shocked, the performance being “more than the ear could bear to hear or the eye to see” (301).

It could be argued that this repression of creativity - so clearly signalled as lying latent in Miss Eckhart by the simile of “she had been pricked and the music came out like red blood under the scab of a forgotten fall” (301) - is part of what drives her to her eventual madness, just as Gilbert and Gubar argue about Jane Eyre’s Bertha in The Madwoman in the Attic. In “June Recital” too, Miss Eckhart ends up voiceless, as she is dragged away by the supposedly ‘comic’ duo of Mr Fatty Bowles and Old Man Moody, who are in truth behaving quite violently towards the old piano teacher.

While no such violence takes place in Cather’s text, the idea of the woman as a threat is clear in the enlarged physicality of Frau Lichtenfeld, as well as in Monsieur Roux’s tirade against the impossibility of a true intellectual woman and his comparison between her and the destructive gaze of the Meduse. In a world where female creativity, sexuality and autonomy is threatening, both Cather and Welty (alongside other female creatives of the early twentieth century) not only subvert social norms in showcasing the unfair nature of this double standard, but actively challenged it in being creatives themselves.

Amigos,

A pedido da professora Diana, deixo abaixo as minhas respostas ao teste de janeiro. Espero que de alguma forma ajudem alguém. Desejo-vos um bom novo semestre.

Até breve,

Félix

1. O excerto de “The Wasteland” a que temos acesso, e que, na obra, encerra a primeira das suas cinco secções, demonstra nitidamente alguns dos principais paradigmas da escrita poética modernista que regem o extenso poema de TS Eliot. Em vários sentidos, aliás, quase não importa que estejamos diante apenas um fragmento da obra, uma vez que, podemos argumentar, ela se compõe de numerosos estilhaços de realidade, mesmo no interior de cada secção. Comecemos por esta característica fragmentada do poema, considerando que descreve um tema mais vasto da literatura modernista, muito influenciada pelas novas correntes de pensamento em torno da memória, da construção da experiência individual e da própria concepção da consciência íntima. Todos estes avanços estão na raíz da literatura modernista e surgem, de uma forma ou de outra, no poema de TS Eliot, e até no excerto com o qual nos deparamos.

Para o explicarmos é necessários termos presentes três autores: Friederich Schiller, Bergson e Freud. Não nos alongando em nenhum dos três, podemos concluir que Bergon e Freud desenvolvem uma teoria fragmentada da História e do indivíduo, respetivamente, que podemos ver em Eliot e noutros autores. Da mesma maneira que em “Wasteland” o leitor se depara com uma obra profundamente polifónica, intertextual, que muda drasticamente de ambientes, personagens, tempo e espaço, também em Bergson concluímos que a memória – e, por arrasto, a experiência – não ocorre de maneira organizada, mas, antes, é produto do passado e do presente, do consciente e do inconsciente, que se compõem através da interconetividade de vários elementos e só se distinguem através do pensamento abstrato. Em “Wasteland”, e no fragmento a que temos acesso, vislumbramos a viagem entre esses momentos desconexos da experiência humana. Se a Bergson acrescentarmos Freud e a teoria de que o consciente humano está escudado permanentemente pelo pensamento abstrato e, além dele, somarmos Schiller e a sua teoria de que “a arte não reside na exclusão de certas realidades, mas na inclusão absoluta de todas as realidades”, temos alguns dos instrumentos necessários para perceber as realidades cacofónicas e retalhadas de “Wasteland”, do excerto que nos é dado e da literatura modernista.

De regresso ao texto de Eliot, podemos compreender também o contexto de produção da obra e a realidade moderna europeia que molda muita da produção poética modernista do início do séc. XX. A “unreal city” de que o sujeito poético fala no primeiro verso é a Londres para onde TS Eliot emigra vindo dos Estados Unidos – ele pertence a um grupo de três poetas modernistas estado-unidenses emigrados, com H.D. e Ezra Pound. Esta Londres tem os seus contornos irreais em parte devido ao “fog” que cai sobre a cidade, mas, principalmente, pelo avistamento de uma multidão de ex-militares, que sobreviveram, em grande parte mutilados, à I Guerra Mundial. Os seus corpos estropiados parecem justificar a surpresa e o horror do sujeito poético quando este exclama “I had not thought death had undone so many”. A excursão dos soldados moribundos, traumatizados no seu andar, de olhar dirigido aos pés, diz respeito não apenas ao tema da morte e renascimento que atravessa a obra “The Wasteland”, mas também à realidade moderna que moldou a produção literária do séc. XX. Afinal de contas, o avistamento dos soldados mutilados, nos quais o interior dos corpos, em alguns casos, se confunde com o exterior, contribui para o desmantelamento do sujeito e dos objetos que avistamos na poesia modernista. Estas aparições também contribuem para a própria fragmentação do tempo, uma vez que os soldados trazem as feridas e traumas de um evento que, em última análise, já terminara. Trata-se de “um viver heroicamente sem fim ou início”, nas palavras de Gertrude Stein, algo a que muitos militares se viam condenados na sua mutilação e trauma.

Mais adiante encontramos aquele que neste excerto é o primeiro exemplo da estratégia de polifonia que atravessa “The Wasteland” e ao qual Fiona Shaw concede relevos e nuances de interpretação que de outra maneira ficariam ocultos. O sujeito poético pergunta a um dos soldados, claramente designando-o como tal, se o cadáver que plantara no ano anterior já havia brotado. Aqui encontramos, mais nitidamente, o tema da vida e morte que cruza “The Wasteland”, poema escrito por Eliot num período conturbado e ensandecido. Muito do poema – e isso é evidente neste excerto – fala de uma certa impossibilidade de morrer, como Eliot ilustra com referências intertextuais ao mito do “Fisher King” e da mulher que no mito é responsável pela travessia dos mortos, que envelhece e, porém, não morre: a Sibila.

Neste tema, para além da tensão contínua entre a vida e a morte, podemos regressar à conceção da experiência como um contínuo fragmentado a que a poesia modernista tenta fazer corresponder a sua forma. O caráter autotélico, hermético, que faz equivaler a erudição mais profunda à cultura mais vulgar, a sua permanente intertextualidade, nunca chegando a um fim natural – “The Wasteland” termina sem um ponto final – são características desta obra de Eliot que a aproximam ao esforço modernista de conferir unidade através da multiplicação de realidades.

2. O período modernista e o início do séc. XX testemunham vários movimentos de emancipação no mundo, desde o eclodir das guerras anticoloniais, por exemplo, ao início dos grandes movimentos artísticos e políticos pelo fim da segregação racial nos Estados Unidos, e, como diz respeito a Willa Cather, à sua obra, e aos movimentos literários,  também à afirmação da mulher artista num domínio controlado pelo patriarcado. Cather, como uma das primeiras escritoras profissionais nos Estados Unidos, como homossexual e autora de várias obras nas quais as mulheres surgem violentadas como castigo pelos seus desejos de independência, é um nítido exemplo de como os movimentos feministas e as políticas de género jorraram para a produção literária dos EUA no começo do século.

É verdade que o conto “Flavia and Her Artists” contém uma crítica pungente aos salões literários da época, à forma como as famílias estado-unidenses cuja fortuna parecia surgir súbita e magicamente pagavam ostensivamente pelo acesso a artistas, através do mecenato, e também à forma como estas sociedades artísticas se realizavam na opulência e num certo novo-riquismo. Tudo isso se encontra neste conto de Cather, até na figura quase indiferente do marido de Flavia, que herdou a fortuna do seu pai, o inventor de uma qualquer máquina industrial, e que com o seu dinheiro paga o contacto voyeurista que a mulher deseja ter com uma casta de artistas que, em última análise, e como demonstra a figura do escritor Monsieur Roux, a desprezam. Também é verdade que o conto descreve o fluxo migratório e um tanto pedante da elite cultural americana, que prezava acima de tudo o exílio na Europa e naquela que era considerada a capital artística do mundo, Paris. Porém, a grande e mais vasta crítica de Willa Cather em “Flavia and Her Artists” dirige-se ao desprezo e castigo lançados contra a mulher e a mulher artista, que por aqueles dias do início do séc. XX se vinha libertando – ou tentando libertar-se – dos papéis de género determinados na sociedade vitoriana e plasmados no poema “The Angel in The House”, de Coventry Patmore.

A mulher artista estado-unidense e modernista não é estranha à supressão do seu génio e repressão da emancipação que ele pode representar. Como Cather, também as poetas H.D., Amy Lowell e Marianne Moore representaram nas suas obras a figura da sexualidade feminina e da mulher independente, embora em parte se vissem obrigadas a fazê-lo sob códigos metafóricos – as flores como genitália feminina em Lowell, por exemplo, que, como algumas destas artisitas, era homo ou bissexual. Em parte, a afirmação do génio feminino faz-se na literatura com o mero acesso à profissão ou com a publicação das suas obras de forma independente, como H.D. só consegue a muito custo, tendo antes de se desvincular do espetro controlador e patriarcal de Ezra Pound, que como o pioneiro do movimento imagista a manietou, assim como a Lowell. Um outro instrumento de afirmação feminista, para além das apresentações metafóricas da sua sexualidade e poder, e o seu acesso ao plano artístico, encontra-se na representação da mulher artista como mártir ou como uma figura de proporções corporais fantásticas.

Encontramos esses exemplos no conto de Cather e também em “June Recital”, de Eudora Welty. No primeiro caso, e no excerto que nos é apresentado, podemos encontrar a figura da mulher artista em duas personagens: Miss Broadwood e Frau Lichtenfeld. Ambas apresentam características andróginas, uma prática coinhecida como “gender-crossing” que permite à autora apresentá-las desvinculadas das imagens constrangedoras da mulher como um ser frágil e deslocado. Se Ms. Broadwood surge como a evocação de um “nice, clean, pink-and-white boy”, Frau Lichtenfeld fá-lo como uma “gigantress”, uma figura de dimensões inacreditáveis que não se conforma ao papel de género que lhe é atribuído: “it has never been my fate to be fitted into corners”, diz.

Apesar de Miss Broadwood e Imogen sofrerem pelas suas tentativas de afirmação artística ao longo do conto, nenhuma figura é tão punida como Miss Eckhart, por coincidência de origem também alemã, e que em “June Recital” representa a impossibilidade de uma ação artística feminina, especialmente numa pequena localidade rural do sul dos EUA, e que, vedada de o fazer, reprimida pelo patriarcado, cai na loucura e tenta o suicídio fazendo-se imolar com o seu objeto artístico: o piano (e metrónomo).

Em Miss Eckhart, as consequências de uma vida proibida na arte levam a um extremo tal de intolerância que o seu corpo, a início grande e portentoso, como o de Frau Lichtenfeld, mirra, emagrece e torna-se frágil. Para Miss Eckhart, que, quando acede à arte, surge também como uma figura andrógina, sem género definido, a impossibilidade de aceder à ocupação de artista representa-se metaforicamente através do incêndio que alastra ao seu cabelo, também um símbolo comum da sexualidade feminina, como se a vila de Morgana a rejeitasse por completo e à sua vida independente. 

Enunciado do teste_jan. 2018

Cotação: I = 95 + II = 95 + 10 (estrutura e correção textual)

I

I. The Burial of the Dead

(…)

Unreal City,	60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.	65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!	70
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!	75
You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

T. S. Eliot, "The Waste Land."

Analise este excerto tendo em conta, entre outros elementos que julgue importantes: i) a totalidade do poema; ii) a performance de Fiona Shaw (como dialoga a sua leitura com esta interpretação corporalizada do poema de Eliot?); iii) o contexto de produção da obra; iv) o intertexto; v) alguns dos paradigmas que regem a escrita poética modernista.

II

"Oh, we have a houseful of the most interesting people," said Flavia, professionally. "We have actually managed to get Ivan Schemetzkin. He was ill in California at the close of his concert tour, you know, and he is recuperating with us, after his wearing journey from the coast. Then there is Jules Martel (…) Then there is my second cousin, Jemima Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero's comedy last winter, and Frau Lichtenfeld. Have you read her?"

Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau Lichtenfeld, and Flavia went on.

"Well, she is a most remarkable person; one of those advanced German women, a militant iconoclast, and this drive will not be long enough to permit of my telling you her history. Such a story! Her novels were the talk of all Germany when I was there last, and several of them have been suppressed--an honor in Germany, I understand. 'At Whose Door' has been translated. I am so unfortunate as not to read German."

"I'm all excitement at the prospect of meeting Miss Broadwood," said Imogen. "I've seen her in nearly everything she does. Her stage personality is delightful. She always reminds me of a nice, clean, pink-and-white boy who has just had his cold bath, and come down all aglow for a run before breakfast."

"Yes, but isn't it unfortunate that she will limit herself to those minor comedy parts that are so little appreciated in this country? One ought to be satisfied with nothing less than the best, ought one?" The peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia always uttered that word "best," the most worn in her vocabulary, always jarred on Imogen and always made her obdurate.

"I don't at all agree with you," she said reservedly. "I thought everyone admitted that the most remarkable thing about Miss Broadwood is her admirable sense of fitness, which is rare enough in her profession."

Flavia could not endure being contradicted; she always seemed to regard it in the light of a defeat, and usually colored unbecomingly. Now she changed the subject.

"Look, my dear," she cried, "there is Frau Lichtenfeld now, coming to meet us. Doesn't she look as if she had just escaped out of Valhalla? She is actually over six feet."

Imogen saw a woman of immense stature, in a very short skirt and a broad, flapping sun hat, striding down the hillside at a long, swinging gait. The refugee from Valhalla approached, panting. Her heavy, Teutonic features were scarlet from the rigor of her exercise, and her hair, under her flapping sun hat, was tightly befrizzled about her brow. She fixed her sharp little eves upon Imogen and extended both her hands.

"So this is the little friend?" she cried, in a rolling baritone.

Imogen was quite as tall as her hostess; but everything, she reflected, is comparative. After the introduction Flavia apologized.

"I wish I could ask you to drive up with us, Frau Lichtenfeld."

"Ah, no!" cried the giantess, drooping her head in humorous caricature of a time-honored pose of the heroines of sentimental romances. "It has never been my fate to be fitted into corners. I have never known the sweet privileges of the tiny."

Laughing, Flavia started the ponies, and the colossal woman, standing in the middle of the dusty road, took off her wide hat and waved them a farewell which, in scope of gesture, recalled the salute of a plumed cavalier.

Willa Cather, “Flavia and Her Artists”.

Comente a passagem apresentada considerando, entre outros aspetos que julgar relevantes: i) as políticas de identidade de género no contexto literário estado-unidense no início do século XX; ii) a construção das personagens que representam a mulher artista neste conto e em “June Recital”, de Eudora Welty.

Alice Walker on Zora Neale Hurston

enjoy!

Identity and marriage

I love the way Janie Crawford
left her husbands
the one who wanted to change her
into a mule
And the other who tried to interest her
in being a queen.
A woman, unless she submits,
is neither a mule
nor a queen
though like a mule she may suffer
and like a queen pace the floor.

Alice Walker  

Source 

+ check "Intersections: Crafting a Voice for Black Culture,"  where Walker talks about her predecessor as a spiritual grandmother here

Presentation on William Faulkner's "That Evening Sun Go Down"

Hello everyone,

As you might be aware of, next Wednesday we are presenting Faulkner's short story "That Evening Sun Go Down" (later versions lost the "Go Down" in the title).

Here are some topics and questions we'd like you to think about.

- How is race depicted in the short story?

- How do the kids in the story see race?

- How does Faulkner himself see race? Is there any connection between the author and Quentin's character?

- The short story seems to explore the aspect of fear recurrently, how important is this to the overall theme of racial relations that Faulkner is presenting us?

- What's your opinion on the ending?


Agnese Fontana, Gustavo Santos, Vítor Gomes

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Good afternoon everyone,

Today we have been talking about Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes were watching God. In this post, I would like to write some information that I found interesting to take into consideration and I hope that it helps you to better understand some aspects of the novel.

First of all, here you are an interesting and dynamic video where you can find some information about the whole novel, and its context of production, along with some information about the life of the author that we know has a special meaning in the text. Also, this "crash course on literature" provides an analysis of some important excerpts of the novel.

I also would like to talk about a theme we discussed in class — the main character, Janie, is trying to connect with herself, with her own personality and feelings. Today, we compared this spiritual and mystical search of the self with a meditation called mindfulness. According to specialists, this is a technique that make people more conscious, happy, and able to use their mind's full capacity. Plus, the teacher mentioned a Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh, who has been writing about how to integrate meditation in our daily lives and thus build a better world.

 

Still from Waking Life (2001), by director Richard Linklater

 Finally, talking about the consciousness, the nature of reality, free will and existentialism, I recommend you the film Waking Life. This will make you reflect on these topics. Here the main character wanders through a succession of dream-like realities.

Raquel Garcia Pérez

'Mudbound' and the race question

Hi everyone! I was at the movies recently and watched the trailer for Mudbound (2017), directed by
Dee Rees.

After reading L. Hughes's "Will V-Day be Me-Day too?" and watching this trailer I think you'd might definitely want to check it out later in the year - not sure when it comes out here (it was actually released on Netflix, but not in Portugal).

Vítor Dutta Gomes

"Get Out" and the mirage of a post-racial America

Since we've been delving into the theme of racial relations in the U.S. I thought it would be relevant to post something about this film. Get Out (2017) was directed by Jordan Peele (who you might know from the Key and Peele show).

In the last lectures we've been talking about the social and intellectual uprising of the African-American community and their constant struggle for respect and recognition, from the slavery period to the Civil Rights Movement. These are issues that still manifest in contemporary society, as we know.

Jordan Peele directed this film (which is now being taken into consideration for the Oscars) in order to present us with the mirage of this so called "post-racial" America. Since Obama was elected for Presidency, it's possible to say that an African-American has reached the highest social position in the U.S. This is the idea that Peele is trying to dismiss. What Get Out tells us is that even though black people can vote and be essentially free, there are still a lot of ideas that come from the slavery period alive today. Jordan Peele's film - which is kind of a satire to "white guilt films" - presents us with the most raw vision of white-black relations in the 21st century and the heritage of slavery that still functions as a hive-mind, even between those who consider themselves liberals and not-racist. I can't spoil the film, otherwise I'd write a full analysis of it.

Vítor Dutta Gomes

Fictional autobiography_Their Eyes Were Watching God

Hello,

 Next Friday's class will draw upon Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, a fictional autobiography about the quest for a voice.

Please consider some key topics to read this text, such as gender, language, race, and the journey towards independence/finding a voice.

After our presentation, we would like to have a brief exchange of ideas on what can we say about the title of the book. It is only referred twice, when the hurricane Okeechobee hits Florida. Take a look at the following quotes and consider these questions — What idea do these excerpts evoke? What is the meaning of the novel's title?

                                    "The time was past for asking the white folks

                                         what to look for through that door. Six

                                          eyes were questioning God." 

                                 "... their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny

                                      might against His. They seemed to be staring at the

                                       dark, but their were watching God."

Gastão Pereira dos Reis; Sofia Paulo