As usual, we will be async today and meet again on Monday with Jennifer Newman, where you’ll learn about finding sources for your research questions that you’ll generate prior to class.
Today, you’ll watch a 15 minute lecture on Rankine and choose one of three writing prompts (below). As usual, you’ll post your response to the blog.
Here’s a link to Dropbox:
Shared with Dropbox
And for those who would like captions, here’s the same thing on YouTube:
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You have a choice of writing prompts this time. Please choose one of the following and respond in 500-1000 words on the blog. As always, make sure to include direct references to the text (quotation or paraphrase) and have a clear argument.
- Choose an image or two to read and talk about how still images and videos interact with the printed text. How does the image “illustrate” the text? How might the text be read, conversely, as a “caption” of the image? More broadly, why do you think Rankine puts such emphasis on the visual in a book that labels itself as a “lyric,” a mode usually associated with words and sounds only?
- Discuss Rankine’s use of grammatical person (i.e., the “I/we” of the first person, the “you” of the second, and the “he/she/they” of the third). Choose a passage from the text and give a “close reading” of Rankine’s use of pronouns: what’s unusual or unexpected about her use of “person”? Why does she use the pronouns she uses? Who or what seem to be the “antecedents” the pronoun/s point to?
- What links can you make with other texts from the course (and you may mention anything from Emerson, Hurston, and Fanon up to our readings of Ellison and Morrison)? Are there direct allusions to anything we read? Are there particular authors/moments that seem especially relevant to Rankine’s narrative?
