369 p., Reconstructs the process of migration, assimilation, and the realization of full sociopolitical participation in the United States in terms of the relationship between peoples of African descent--who were compelled to migrate as slaves across the Middle Passage, and who also voluntarily immigrated from various localities within the Black Atlantic--and select groups of immigrants from other locations around the globe. The author concentrates on novels by William Faulkner, Paule Marshall, James Baldwin, and cartoonist Chris Ware, and examine closely how these authors, in their respective texts, work to restructure, reimagine, and thereby challenge the enshrined American narratives of national belonging and acculturation through literary constructions of the identities and experiences of peoples of African descent, as migrants themselves, in tandem with their social, political, economic, sexual, racial, and cultural engagements with other immigrants to the nation-state.
59 p., Investigates the demands made in negotiations between white colonists, gens de couleurs, and insurgents in the opening months of the Haitian Revolution. Argues that, at least initially, demands for general emancipation were not made, but instead that insurgents sought the amelioration of working conditions on plantations and gens de couleur asked for political rights.
169 p., Examines entanglements of race, place, gender, and class in Puerto Rican reggaetón. Based on ethnographic and archival research in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and in New York, New York, I argue that Puerto Rican youth engage with an African diasporic space via their participation in the popular music reggaetón. By African diasporic space, the author refers to the process by which local groups incorporate diasporic resources such as cultural practices or icons from other sites in the African diaspora into new expressions of blackness that respond to their localized experiences of racial exclusion. Participation in African diasporic space not only facilitates cultural exchange across different African diasporic sites, but it also exposes local communities in these sites to new understandings and expressions of blackness from other places. As one manifestation of these processes in Puerto Rico, reggaetón refutes the hegemonic construction of Puerto Rican national identity as a "racial democracy."
195 p., Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969), Gayl Jones' Corregidora (1975), and Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979) enhance our conceptualization of black aestheticism and black nationalism as cultural and political movements. The writers use the novel as genre to question the ideological paradigm of a black nationalist aesthetic by providing alternative definitions of community, black women's sexuality, and race relations. Because of the ways in which these writers respond to black aestheticism and black nationalism, they transform our understanding of movements often perceived as sexist, racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic.
637 p., Utilizes perceptions and attitudes towards the Haitian Revolution as a means to resituate party conflict and the boundaries of American nationalism in the Early Republic. The concept of nationalism is utilized in both the shaping of political culture and in the institutional formation of the state. As a result, the Haitian Revolution generated contradictory factional responses between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans to the emergence of revolutionary abolitionism in the Atlantic. On a more popular level, the ordeal of Haiti engendered a fear of black militant abolitionism that hardened American attitudes towards the possibility of further slave emancipation in the United States.
Explores the experiences of Caribbean women teachers who are recruited to teach in a mid sized Southern city. Narrative methods were used to analyze four Barbadian women teachers' perspectives on their: initial experiences and challenges; teaching philosophies and approaches to teaching American students; and successful transition into Louisville, Kentucky's public schools after five years of teaching. In an age where school districts across the nation seek educators from overseas to address the well-documented teacher shortage, this study has implications for helping future international teacher candidates transition into U.S. public schools.
251 p., Analysis of characteristic traits of Afrodescendants in the Atabaque and the Conférence Haïtienne des Religieux et Religieuses research work. These publications are used to bring to light the Afro-Brazilian and Haitian theological reflection as an expression of their commitment to multicultural and mestizo Brazil as well as black Haiti. Based on the comparative study of the content of these theologies developed in Brazil and in Haiti, highlights two separate currents from 1986 to 2004 in theological databases. This delimitation corresponds to the phase of publication of results of three consultations about black theologies in Brazil in 1986, in 1995 and 2004. The CHR's works date from 1991 to 1999. This study aims to trace their practice of the Christian faith, as well as their development and their evolution.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
263 p., A study of the poetics of experimental writing, focusing on the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Nathaniel Mackey, Suzan-Lori Parks and Kamau Brathwaite. Arguing that conceptions of time tend to be at the heart of political concerns throughout the sites of the African diaspora, this project challenges those notions of black writing that rest on the binary or oppression/resistance. Specifically concerned with poetry, Kamau Brathwaite and Nathaniel Mackey specifically confront and contravene the legacy of the lyric voice in both the presentation and topics of their work. Brathwaite invents a shifting system of fonts, margins and a capacious first-person singular/plural to articulate a time and a "we" of the Caribbean and the diaspora.
151 p., Black ethnic groups are often grouped together under global headings, ignoring the variations that may lead to different manifestations and expressions of depressive symptoms. Identifying intrapersonal, cultural and environmental pathways to successful mental health functioning among Black ethnic minority groups and subgroups is pivotal to the provision of culturally relevant mental health services. Methods. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of variables that have been previously mentioned in the literature, such as cultural resources, psychosocial variables, neighborhood characteristics and perceived discrimination, on the levels of depression among Afro-Caribbean and African American and between Afro-Caribbean Blacks.
