A blog for SUNY Geneseo students and faculty interested in American Studies
Hi all,
I know a lot people are trying to stay off of social media today, but if you watch anything at all, I ask you to watch this.
Think about how it connects to Morrison’s writings, or simply just watch because it’s important.
Sending love out to everyone.
-Ari
For those of you who might not have seen it, I just wanted to share an article that Dr.McCoy alluded to in our class the other day and had retweeted on twitter. Jamelle Bouie’s “White Won” is both a look at some of the initial emotions following the results from Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning and is an attempt to discuss our nation’s “long cycle of progress and backlash.” I think that the article provides an interesting dialogue to the currently ongoing and expanding conversation, as well as relates to the topic of churning that we have seen throughout Morrison’s works.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend who is taking a Morrison class at another university sent me a link to this Toni Morrison essay and insisted I read it. At the time, I was eager to do so simply because it was Morrison. Now, though, it seems more relevant than ever. I am sharing the link here with you, and perhaps we can let Morrison guide us through with her words, as we did so in class this week.
Love to you all.
In Paradise, Morrison returns us as readers to tracking and tracing. “Ruby” begins a cascade that attends to the violence of those concepts, but I urge you at the same time also to be alert to how the novel insists once again on the both/and.
As part of that, here’s a link to a searchable (yes) index of the “Lost Friends” column that ran in the New Orleans Southwestern Christian Advocate. The column, according to the site’s homepage, ran for decades after 1877, and was composed of “messages from individuals seeking loved ones lost in slavery.”
Before I start, I want to take a moment to address a very specific group of readers–Every woman, every person of color, every Muslim, every immigrant, every child of immigrants, every member of the LGBTQI+ community:
I’m not going to pretend to know how you feel right now. Continue reading “Staying Focused”
I woke up today disoriented, unable to think clearly about our country’s future. Yesterday, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States. America has spoken. Although this means that many of our constitutional rights have taken a hit with a win by Trump’s linear and alienating rhetoric, it also means that we must come together to teach people love. I saw the following Saturday Night Live skit on my newsfeed this morning and it made me feel better. I hope that it leaves you all in the same spirits.
As I’ve been sick at home with Bronchitis, I decided to do some research into other forms of adaptations of Dante and his Divine Comedy, and came across the Danteum. As you’ll see in the many links I’ll have pasted below, the Danteum was Giuseppe Terragni’s proposal to Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime, to build a monument in honor of the Poet in time for the upcoming Esposition of 1942 in Rome. Continue reading “The Danteum”
Eyebrows, Itches, and It.
So I never got around to posting over the weekend like I should have so this post is going to cover multiple topics from class and from Dante.
Eyebrows
I’m not a super social person, and while I am perfectly fine walking up to my friends and randomly asking them about eyebrows I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to ask people in person over the weekend. However, I did make a Facebook status asking my friends about eyebrows. There are two things I would like to note: “B” is my sister whose concentration in college was English; and the first “M” is my sister in law who is an aesthetician. I found it interesting, though not surprising, that everyone who responded was female. While most posts were humorous, many of my friends seemed to be very conscious of their imperfections that likely remain unnoticed by others. Continue reading “Eyebrows, Itches, and It.”
As Lizzie said in her post, I too thought the emphasis on brows in the latest reading from Dante was interesting considering how brows have become such an important part of beauty in recent years. But, like Lizzie, I’m unsure how this will connect with Morrison’s Paradise, if at all.
Because I am really into makeup, I’m very intrigued by how easy it is to change your appearance depending on your eyebrows– if they’re thick and full or very thin, it really does make a difference. It was funny how Dr. McCoy “challenged” us to pay attention to others’ eyebrows because I do that anyway. I’m not sure if this is because I have a passion for makeup or if I just notice little things.
It’s interesting that eyebrows can be seen as a form of expression. I’d never thought of it that way but when you look in the mirror and make faces at yourself, how often do your eyebrows give away what emotion you’re feeling? Many people furrow their brow in concentration or raise them when they’re surprised. So what does it mean that a few years ago the trend was to shave your brows? Without eyebrows, would it be harder to tell how someone’s feeling? This seems like a silly question but I really am curious, and this might be even sillier, but for some reason I thought of Britney Spears shaving her head during her famous breakdown.