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Essay based on “Their Eyes Were Watching God” – Zora Neale Hurston
People of color have always theorized—but in forms quite
different from the Western form of abstract logic. And I am inclined
to say that our theorizing (and I intentionally use the verb rather
then the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create,
in riddles and proverbs, in the play with language, since dynamic
rather than fixed ideas that seem more to our liking. How else have we
managed to survive with such spiritedness the assault on our
bodies, social institutions, countries, our very humanity? And
women, at least the women I grew up around, continuously
speculated about the nature of life through pithy language that
unmasked the power relations of their world. It is this language, and
the grace and pleasure with which they played with it, that I find
celebrated, refined, and critiqued in the works of writers like [Toni]
Morrison and [Alice] Walker. My folk, in other words, have always
been a race for theory… 1
The impetus for writing The Bluest Eye in the first place was to
write a book about a kind of person that was never in literature
anywhere, never taken seriously by anybody—all those peripheral
little girls. So I wanted to write a book that—if that child ever picked
it up—would look representational…
Yes. Stories. There were two kinds of education going on: one was
the education in the schools which was print-oriented; and right-side
by side with it was this other way of looking at the world that was
not only different than what we learned about in school, it was
coming through another sense. People told stories… 2
“One writes out of one thing only – one’s own experience…
Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this
experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can give…”
“A writer is by definition a disturber of the peace. He has to be…He
has to make you ask yourself, make you realize that you are always
asking yourself, questions that you don’t know how to face.”3
1 (Christian, Barbara. The race for theory p.41, 198
The above quotes reflect different authors’ perspectives about writing and
producing work that expand the idea of intellectual production beyond the
academic walls. They reflect the tradition of sharing knowledge in forms that
are not always considered intellectual enough.
Those affirmations illustrate the discussions we have held in this class this
semester. Throughout these months, we discuss the importance of Africana
Intellectuality and how Black people’s activism, daily resistance and creativity
walk side-by-side with our intellectual production.
After considering the statements above, this assignment requires you to write a
6-8 pages paper (+ bibliographical references) on your selected novel. Although
this assignment is individual, you will use it to justify your group’s presentation
topic.
The idea is to contextualize how this book is part of the Africana Intellectual
Thought. Your work explains how the work and the author you selected match
the main concepts and discussions we held this semester. Please refer to the
feedback I provided for your presentation and review the issues for this paper.
You will find your object of analysis, introduce it, and justify how and why it can
be considered part of the African intellectual canon.
Your text must include:
A justification for your choice A literature review of the t Historical contextualization (year, time, decade / local, global, author/artist
– A justification for the choice
– A literature review of the topic
– Historical contextualization (year, time, decade / local, global, author/artist
Conclusi