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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
medium-paced
An important text!
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
One of ms morrison’s best analysis work. Amazing! Queen hit us with straight facts!
I think I understood the thesis, but I found Morrison's language challenging. Perhaps it was not intended for a general audience? I can imagine studying this book as part of an American literature course.
There are some excellent, lengthy, reviews of the book on this site if you're interested.
There are some excellent, lengthy, reviews of the book on this site if you're interested.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Without a doubt the most challenging and rewarding text I’ve read so far in a year in which I’ve read countless challenging and rewarding texts.
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“My project is an effort to avert critical gaze from the racial object to the racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers; from the serving to the served” (90).
“The kind of work I have always wanted to do requires me to learn how to maneuver ways to free up the language from it’s sometimes sinister, frequently lazy, almost always predictable employment of racially informed and determined chains” (xi).
Like... !!!! Her exploration of the idea that the language we have (because we only have the language that is available to us) can be used as a tool to work through language?! I feel like I’m in college again having those first “whoa...” moments when my brain hurts and I feel hopelessly incapable of reading and understanding anything ever again. Anyway, thank you, Toni Morrison.
—
“My project is an effort to avert critical gaze from the racial object to the racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers; from the serving to the served” (90).
“The kind of work I have always wanted to do requires me to learn how to maneuver ways to free up the language from it’s sometimes sinister, frequently lazy, almost always predictable employment of racially informed and determined chains” (xi).
Like... !!!! Her exploration of the idea that the language we have (because we only have the language that is available to us) can be used as a tool to work through language?! I feel like I’m in college again having those first “whoa...” moments when my brain hurts and I feel hopelessly incapable of reading and understanding anything ever again. Anyway, thank you, Toni Morrison.
In this series of lectures, Morrison discusses how Americanness and whiteness (and in conjunction, "autonomy, authority, newness and difference, [and] absolute power") are constructed in literature through white authors' conscious depictions of an Africanist presence (which includes not only Black characters, but also the absence of Black characters).
"Africanism is the vehicle by which the American self knows itself as not enslaved, but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned, but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but a progressive fulfillment of destiny" (52).
I think this should be essential reading for anyone interested in literary criticism, and especially for anyone studying works in the American literary "canon", although I definitely think her methodology can be applied to other periods of literature as well!
"Africanism is the vehicle by which the American self knows itself as not enslaved, but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned, but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but a progressive fulfillment of destiny" (52).
I think this should be essential reading for anyone interested in literary criticism, and especially for anyone studying works in the American literary "canon", although I definitely think her methodology can be applied to other periods of literature as well!
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Toni went in on those hos.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This is a very accessible work for understanding the role of Whiteness in academic Literature culture. Even if you haven't read all of the novels mention, Morrison provides adequate summary and analysis for the reader to understand. I think that this is skewed towards literature students, but I think everyone can find value. Of course, some of the concepts can feel more abstract and difficult to grasp. I think this is one of the books that I will understand more and differently with each time I read it. I definitely reccomend to those who are interested.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Hate crime, Rape