This paper should be 5-6 pages in length — NOT including the copy of the Walker image or the Rankine piece.
Please use the first person “I” voice in this; Your interest in these pieces, your reaction, and your thoughts are encouraged.
Final Paper:
This project asks you to focus on three texts – one by each woman – that you will then connect in some way – whether you see parallels, evolutions, or responses across the pieces and the artists. While slavery and the work of Morrison and Walker is something we will have discussed, there are many other aspects of these three women you might choose to explore such as politics, style, voice, gender, critical reception, agenda, audience, and so on. You may, of course, also focus on slavery as there is so much to both choose from and so much that still needs to be said.
While we have read two or three articles that link Morrison and Walker, adding in Rankine forces you to re-think the connections made by those theorists and expand them (or challenge them in some way) in order to also connect Rankine.
Keep in mind the Hurston quotation “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background” as well as the central idea of this course that reads these various texts as “acts of resistance” as you consider the way you will organize and argue your essay.
All papers should refer to at least two of the critical pieces discussed (feel free to bring in other texts if you 1. So desire, 2. Can find something relevant and, 3. Have the time).
Please include a copy of whatever Walker image you are discussing as well as a copy of the Rankine poem or prose piece or section of the play. Focus on one section of the Morrison novel or an over-arching theme or stylistic choice rather than attempting to discuss the entirety of whichever text you choose.
