A huge shoutout to @adeladecevic for referring me to Parker’s article.

 Original research question: What is the cultural and historical significant of the food items written about in The Bluest Eye, and do they contribute to the novel’s theme?

     Hinman Abel, Mary. Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking Adapted to Persons of Moderate and Small Means. American Public Health Organization, 1889, pg.iv, 106.

• Hinman Abel’s cookbook includes a guide for her idea of proper nutrition and cheap-to-make recipes designed for lower-class families in the late nineteenth century. The cookbook’s recipe for cobbler, the notable dessert Claudia and Frieda spill, is the first time the dish is properly printed with the racialized epithet, “Brown Betty.”

     “Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking.” Feeding America, The Historic American Cookbook Project, digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/books/book_42.cfm.

• The Historic American Cookbook Project’s introduces Practical Sanitary. The page documents the cookbook’s origins briefly, claiming the cookbook’s tone as straightforward and dispassionate. The page contextualizes the “brown betty,” recipe, as the cookbook is specifically inspired by European cuisine and dining habits.

     Gardaphé, Fred L., and Wenying Xu. “Introduction: Food in Multi-Ethnic Literatures.” MELUS, vol. 32, no. 4, 2007, pp. 5–10. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30029828.

• Gardaphé and Xu lay the groundwork for food’s role and significance in multi-ethnic literature. They argue that food serves as a motif that accentuates characters’ ethnicities in these narratives and contributes to subject formation, community formation, and identity.

     Graves, Brian. “You Are What You Beat: Food Metaphors and Southern Black Identity in Twentieth-Century African American Literature and Goodie Mob’s ‘Soul Food.’” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 38, no. 1, 2015, pp.125-127. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44259588.

• Graves argues that food is central to black-southern identity: Southern cuisine can either comfort black characters or expose their rural-blackness and cause identity crises. Graves’s argument is specifically relevant to Pecola’s mother Pauline, a black woman from Alabama who chooses to make an iconic southern dish for her proper, white employers.

     House, Elizabeth B. “The ‘Sweet Life’ in Toni Morrison’s Fiction.” American Literature, vol. 56, no. 2, 1984, pp. 182. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2925752.

• House argues that Morrison threads a battle between capitalist versus idyllic values in her work, the former of which is superior though costly to the trajectory of characters’ lives. She claims that Morrison employs food imagery to show these contrasting values.

     Kuenz, Jane. “The Bluest Eye: Notes on History, Community, and Black Female Subjectivity.” African American Review, vol. 27, no. 3, 1993, pp. 421–431. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3041932.

• Kuenz argues that The Bluest Eye attempts to rewrite an authentic portrayal black-female subjectivity and portray how black-female subjects are invaded by mass-white culture, specifically black-female sexuality. She claims that Pecola Breedlove experiences arousal from fantasizing about inhabiting a white body, and gets sexual pleasure from eating the Mary Jane candies.

     Lewis, Edna, et al. The Taste of Country Cooking. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, pp.6-25, 184, 194, 455.

• Lewis’s cookbook, published in the same decade as The Bluest Eye, pioneered Americans’ appreciation for Southern cooking, exemplifying black pride and representing an idealized, community-oriented food culture in the black community that at times contrasts with Morrison’s more nuanced take. Lewis’s book gives insight into some of the food featured in The Bluest Eye, through recipes and her childhood memories of the foods. Similarly to Morrison’s novel, the cookbook is separated into the sections “Spring,” “Summer,” “Fall,” and “Winter.”

     Parker, Emma. “‘Apple Pie’ Ideology and the Politics of Appetite in the Novels of Toni Morrison.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 39, no. 4, 1998, pp. 620–629. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1208728.

• Parker argues that sugar and hunger emphasize and cause black characters’ oppression in Morrison’s novels. She claims that fruit and sugar are associated with capitalism, freedom, and the black race’s history of oppression, contextualizing the significance of the various sweets and fruits referred to throughout The Bluest Eye that highlight the social differences and self-hatred characters associated with these foods have.

Bouson, J. Brooks. “‘Quiet As It’s Kept’: Shame and Trauma in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 363, Gale, 2014. Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/ICZSMX031801056/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=274ea0b2.

I searched on Gale Literary Sources for Incestuous Rape and then under Person-About I searched for Morrison Toni, First article. Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eyefocuses society as well as incest. Bouson, J. Brooks discusses the different areas that Morrison expresses trauma as well as vulnerability that Pecola goes through. This article is relevant to my topic because this article goes in more depth of the trauma that Pecola goes through.

Mayo, James. “Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” Children’s Literature Review, edited by Tom Burns, vol. 99, Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420059149/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=d6f513f7.

I searched on Gale Literary Sources for Incestuous Rape and then under Person-About I searched for Morrison Toni, Third Article. James Mayo discusses the many metaphors that Toni Morrison added in The Bluest Eye. Many of the metaphors show sexual imagery. This article goes with my topic because there are many metaphors that I couldn’t see within the novel of the sexual imagery that describe Pecola in her father’s point of view.

Noble-Goodman, Stuart. “Mythic guilt and the burden of sin in Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man.’ (Ralph Ellison).” The Midwest Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 4, 1998, p. 409+. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A20992288/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=3cd5280b.

I searched on Gale Literary Sources for Ralph Ellison Invisible Man 1st article. Noble-Goodman discusses the many points of guilt that characters have felt through out the Invisible Man. Ex. Norton feeling guilty of incestuous feelings towards his daughter. This article goes with my topic because while I’m discussing Pecola’s trauma I want to also discuss the guilt and the trauma that men and woman faced within the Invisible Man.

Awkward, Michael. “Roadblocks and Relatives: Critical Revision in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 173, Gale, 2003. Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/NMVJBK163758806/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=233aae60.

I searched on Gale Literary Sources for Ralph Ellison And Toni Morrison Incestuous Rape 1st article. Awkward’s article discusses the difference of Incestuous Rape and the explanation of how Ellison viewed the Incestuous Rape with Morrisons The Bluest Eye. Awkward also discusses how in Ellisons Invisible Man, the feminist view of rape was nonexistent. This article is relevant to my topic because the meaning of Incestuous Rape in both novels are different as well as the views of men and women.

Zender, Karl F. “Faulkner and the Politics of Incest.” American Literature, vol. 70, no. 4, 1998, 739–765. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2902390.

I searched on J Store Politics Incest and it was the 2nd article. Zender discusses the different understandings of incest within Poems, Novels, etc. This article is relevant to my topic because of the different stories and or poems that revolve on incest between children and parent. With this article I can back up my ideas of Toni Morrisons Novel The Bluest Eye.

Booth, W. James. “The Color of Memory: Reading Race with Ralph Ellison.” Political Theory, vol. 36, no. 5, 2008, pp. 683–707. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20452661.

Ralph Ellison’s writings in the “Invisible Man” emphasized how negative imagery can affect individuals and how it obstructs the realization of identity. Booth explores the relationship between the visibility of race and color and how it affects the memory of injustice and the American identity.

Hersi, Asli, Hersi. Rethinking Racism in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2016). Web.

Hersi uses Rankine’s Citizen to describe and elaborate the effects of microaggressions and its severity considering it an act of racism, then evenly matching it to macroaggression on the same degree.

Sen, Sharmilla. Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America. 2018. Print.

Sharmilla offers a distinct edge to the existing debate on race and immigration, whilst asking questions about whiteness and what it means for whiteness to retain the power of invisibility whilst other colors are made hypervisible.

Kamal Al- Solaylee, Brown: What Being Brown In The World Today Means (To Everyone). 2016. Print.

Al- Solaylee questions “Brownness” What it means to be racialized as a brown person in the developed world. He attempts to help understand how we perpetuate colorism and the favouring of lighter skin tones.

Reddy, Maureen T. “Invisibility/Hypervisibility: The Paradox of Normative Whiteness.” Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, vol. 9, no. 2, 1998, pp. 55–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43587107.

Reddy responds to what is considered “whiteness” and elaborates on the effects it has on those that are born white and what it means for those that aren’t born white, breaking down the expectations of how they respond to it

Baker, Houston A. “To Move without Moving: An Analysis of Creativity and Commerce in Ralph Ellison’s Trueblood Episode.” PMLA, vol. 98, no. 5, 1983, 828–845. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/462262.

Baker argues that the Trueblood episode blurs the line between folklore and literary art that Ellison draws in his critical work. Trueblood also consolidates supposed “public” and “private” Afro-American experience. Baker believes the Trueblood episode is “meta expressive” in that it references and comments on multiple other narratives, including narratives within the novel and narratives in fields other than literature. By focusing on these narratives, Baker effectively ignores questions of gender.

Doane, Janice and Devon Hodges. Telling Incest: Narratives of Dangerous Remembering from Stein to Sapphire. The University of Michigan Press, 2001. Print.

In their book, Doane and Hodges focus on father-daughter incest specifically. They argue that the idea of incest is often otherized and seen as only happening in fantasy, which discredits and prevents those involved in incest from being heard truthfully. In Chapter 2, Doane and Hodges focus on incest in Invisible Man and The Bluest Eye, asserting that Morrison responded to Ellison’s paternalistic depiction of incest by giving Pecola a voice. Doane and Hodges define African American incest as uniquely framed under paternalism/slave narratives, which serve to blame the relatively powerless for their suffering.

Grogan, Christine. “Morrison Responds to the Psychological Community in The Bluest Eye.” Father-Daughter Incest in Twentieth-Century American Literature: The Complex Trauma of the Wound and the Voiceless. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2016. 75-94. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2016383186&site=ehost-liVe.

In Chapter Three of her book on father-daughter incest in twentieth-century American literature, Christine Grogan compares Ellison and Morrison’s depictions of incest. Both authors reveal that paternal incest is a microcosm of power dynamics. However, Morrison gives a voice to underrepresented poor, black girls with Pecola. Pecola also makes incest concrete, where it had previously been only hypothetical. Grogan’s work expands on some of Doane and Hodges’s ideas, as it elaborates both on Pecola’s voice and on the concretization of incest narratives.

Koopman, Emy. “Incestuous Rape, Abjection, and the Colonization of Psychic Space in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 49, no. 3, July 2013, 303–315. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2013394547&site=ehost-liVe.

Koopman questions that colonialism narratives can be perfectly mapped onto rape narratives.  She also challenges connections drawn between rape and abjection, or “being cast aside.” She identifies the “colonization of psychic space” as it is present in The Bluest Eye, with Pecola internalizing colonial notions of inferiority and superiority. Koopman’s work pushes back on Doane and Hodges’s linkage of rape and paternalism.

Zender, Karl F. “Faulkner and the Politics of Incest.” American Literature, vol. 70, no. 4, 1998, 739–765. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2902390.

Zender examines Faulkner’s depiction of incest, finding it to be religious and oedipal. He notes that depictions of incest have been similar not only in Faulkner’s work but also in the work of other authors, suggesting that incest narratives have subscribed to a set of motifs. Zender’s work is valuable to my research because it echoes Baker’s references to Freud and explains how episodes of incest fulfill the Oedipus complex, a lens which could also be used to analyze Morrison and Ellison.

Adams-Bass, Valerie N., et al. “Measuring the Meaning of Black Media Stereotypes and Their Relationship to the Racial Identity, Black History Knowledge, and Racial Socialization of African American Youth.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 45, no. 5, 2014, pp. 367–395., www.jstor.org/stable/24573089.

Antoine, Katja. “’Pushing the Edge’ of Race and Gender Hegemonies through Stand-up Comedy: Performing Slavery as Anti-Racist Critique.” Etnofoor, vol. 28, no. 1, 2016, pp. 35–54. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43823941.

Burma, John H. “Humor as a Technique in Race Conflict.” American Sociological Review, vol. 11, no. 6, 1946, pp. 710–715. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2087066.

Davidson, Chandler. “Ethnic Jokes: An Introduction to Race and Nationality.” Teaching Sociology, vol. 15, no. 3, 1987, pp. 296–302. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1318345.

Henderson, Felicia D. “The Culture Behind Closed Doors: Issues of Gender and Race in the Writers’ Room.” Cinema Journal, vol. 50, no. 2, 2011, pp. 145–152. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41240701.

Nielson, Erik. “White Surveillance of the Black Arts.” African American Review, vol. 47, no. 1, 2014, pp. 161–177., www.jstor.org/stable/24589802.

“Race and the No-Spin Zone: The Thin Line between Trolling and Corporate Punditry.” This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, by Whitney Phillips, MIT Press, 2015, pp. 95–114. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt17kk8k7.11.

Roberts, Rosemarie A., et al. “Flipping the Script: Analyzing Youth Talk about Race and Racism.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 3, 2008, pp. 334–354. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25166672.

“Toward a Method/Ology.” This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, by Whitney Phillips, MIT Press, 2015, pp. 37–48. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt17kk8k7.7.

I started off my research by going to the Gale Literary Sources Database and searching the terms “minstrel shows”, “minstrelsy”, and “blackface minstrel shows”. I was hoping to find an article outlining the history of these shows and perhaps linking them to a trend of racial imagery in literature; however, most of the results I found seemed to be focused in on the writings of specific authors or were too short to establish a real background. I moved over to JSTOR, where I searched “minstrel show” and found a number of sources that seemed more relevant. After choosing a few articles about the effect of stereotypes in popular media on black youth and attempts by Black artists in the 1960s and ’70s to establish a Black aesthetic separate from whiteness. Looking through the tags on different results that popped up, I realized that I could choose a tag (“jokes”) and search for a term within that tag (“race”), which helped me to find sources that felt much more relevant and targetted towards my topic (humor as a vehicle in discussions about race). I have also looked at some of the sources cited in the articles I chose and am trying to get access to them through Hunter’s Library.