Write an essay in which you ?compare the interventions of two movements (options #1-3 below) of the African Diaspora? in a dialogue with each other. ?Choose two readings from each movement?, and briefly engage with analyses from one work of African Diasporic scholarship (#4)?. Focus on producing a theme-driven essay, not a plot/argument summary. Make thoughtful in-depth arguments about the texts using quotations as supporting evidence and elaborating your own analyses.
- New Negro Movement
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” and “Let America Be America Again” - Zora Neale Hurston, “How it Feels to be Colored Me” - Afro-Surrealism
Robin Kelley, “Keepin’ It (Sur)real: Dreams of the Marvelous”
Selections from ?Black, Brown, and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora - Tongo Eisen-Martin, ?Heaven is All Goodbyes - Decolonization
Aimé Césaire, ?Discourse on Colonialism
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “The Language of African Literature - African Diasporic scholarship
Brent Edwards, “The Uses of Diaspora”
Robin Kelley, “How the West Was One”
Bernice Johnson Reagon, “African Diaspora Women: The Making of Cultural Workers” - Poetry Foundation, “An Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance”
Suggested Thematic Questions
How do these movements redefine artistic freedoms, creative innovations, and responsibilities toward the author’s communities and time periods?
What specific debates or differences may exist within and across people in each movement, and what could this say about the complexity of ideas and actions in the African Diaspora?
Sample Solution