All the Feels (COMLIT 60AC)
Conformity
Intergenerational Trauma
Cultural Expectations
Migration
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Emotions as Public/Political
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Kingston
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
Shame and Its Sisters, Silvan Tomkins
"A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia," David Eng and Shinhee Han
"How to Tame a Wild Tongue," Gloria Anzaldua
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
Racial Tensions
"Representation of Whiteness in the Black Imagination," bell hooks
"Notes of a Native Son," James Baldwin
"Beyond Anger," Martha Nussbaum
"The Aptness of Anger," Amia Srinivasan
LGBTQ+ and Women's Rights.
"Mourning and Melancholia," Sigmund Freud :
MIGRATION: Changez has to contend with moving to a new country with hopes of achieving the "American Dream," even as 9/11 causes many to be prejudiced against him.
Anna Deveare Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles
CULTURAL EXPECTATIONS: Oscar doesn't fit into the mold of Dominican masculinity because he is obese and a self-proclaimed "ghetto nerd." This results in him being alienated and shamed by his peers, both Dominican and non-Dominican.
INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA: The novel goes through multiple family members' stories, starting from Oscar, to Lola, to Beli, to La Inca, and finally Abelard. Each story deals with the ramifications of toxic Dominican masculinity, passed down through each generation.
CONFORMITY: Pecola Breedlove desperately wants blue eyes in order to fit into a society that tells her she's not deserving of respect because she's black and ugly
This was placed by Get Out because the film touches on how white people are viewed from the perspective of white people. This concept is focused on heavily in hooks's piece.
INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA: hooks draws a connection between black stereotypes of white people and the trauma from centuries of oppression. This history of racism resulted in a survival instinct, where whiteness is seen as "terrorizing."
CULTURAL EXPECTATIONS: Throughout the movie, Chris has to deal with his white girlfriend's family's preconceived notions of black people. For example, Dean Armitage says he would've "voted for Obama for a third term" because he doesn't know how else to relate to Chris.
Baldwin explores the death of his father, who was haunted by the past traumas of racism. Baldwin had previously not understood his father and thought him insane, until he experienced the same racism his father had, making him realize why his father was both fearful and aggressive towards white people.
Nussbaum argues that anger is rarely ever a productive emotion because it implies that one would want to see harm done to the person who angered them, but that would not undo the past. Therefore, there is very little use for anger. This was placed here because the other examples (like ACT UP) use anger politically, but this work says to avoid this.
Srinivasan tweaks Nussbaum's argument, which is the counterproductivity principle, and notes that while anger is not always productive, there is still a time and place where it is apt.
"Poetry is Not a Luxury," Audre Lorde
Lorde explains how poetry is seen as fanciful and whimsical when in reality, it's one of the most powerful ways women can put their thoughts and emotions on paper and turn it into tangible action
"The Affective Politics of Fear," Sara Ahmed
The idea of shame and self-contempt, and how they manifest, are the main focuses of these piece. Pecola's need to conform comes from a deep feeling of shame because of her skin color, external beauty, and toxic household. On top of that, Cholly's self-contempt, which Tomkins describes as a complete rejection of the self, stems from trauma endured in childhood and leads him down a destructive path because he doesn't care what happens to himself.
Anzaldua goes into the prejudices that come with speaking another language, and how even those who speak the same language judge each other for speaking certain dialects. Anzaldua details her own experience having to drop her accent to conform, and the divides that form due to the different dialects.
MIGRATION: The protagonist's mother left her old life in China to try to find a better life in America. She tries to hold onto her traditional values and instill those in her children, despite their reluctance.
CONFORMITY: The protagonist's main struggle throughout the novel is trying to conform to American standards while she is haunted by the "ghosts" of China through her mother.
Cruising Utopia, Jose Esteban Munoz / "Can Hope Be Disappointed?" Ernst Bloch
Since melancholia is the loss of something intangible, like an ideal, racial melancholia is the loss of one's connection to one's culture, often felt by immigrants or children of immigrants, much like the protagonist of Woman Warrior
Ahmed presents a hypothesis that says that emotions, like fear, are caused by culture, not psychology. This results in the "othering" (or the marginalization) of certain groups, centering on a particular interaction between a fearful, young, white boy and a black person
Ernst Bloch states that hope itself has disappointment interwoven into its very meaning, "it is not confidence." Hope is an anticipatory feeling, and Munoz draws on this detail of Bloch's definition of hope by applying it to queer theory, connecting it to queerness as a utopia, or something not-quite-here.
While anger was a primary emotion for LGBTQ+ activism, hope was also necessary, more specifically, the focus needed to shift from the here-and-now (same-sex marriage, military service) to the future.
A one-woman play chronicling the LA riots that occurred as a result of the pent-up racial tensions, and was exacerbated by the beating of Rodney King. All dialogue used are taken straight from over 300 interviews that Smith conducted in the area during that time.
Both "Beyond Anger" and "The Aptness of Anger" are attached to this work because while Rodney King received justice, much destruction to LA was done, and tensions between the black community and other minorities like Hispanics and Koreans were worsened, therefore, it somewhat follows Nussbaum's argument. Despite this, this level of anger could be considered apt, similar to Srinivasan's argument.
HIV/AIDS CRISIS
Deborah Gould, Moving Politics
Freud clarifies the difference between mourning, which is a natural part of living and is attached to a specific entity, and melancholia, which is characterized as a disease and the melancholic person is experiencing the loss of something intangible, such as an ideal. The understanding of the concept of melancholia is necessary in understanding the concept of racial melancholia.
Gran Fury, Selected Works
There's a section of Munoz's argument which talks about the "anticipatory illumination of art...helping us see the not-yet-conscious," similar to how Lorde focuses on art helping bring to life intangible thoughts and emotions
This work details ACT UP's protests against the government and other large industries due to negligence towards the AIDS crisis because it affected minority populations to a greater degree. The organization turned grief felt towards the death of loved ones into anger towards those who neglected the issue, thereby weaponizing emotion into a political force.
Gran Fury was one of the groups that was an offshoot of ACT UP, and was a large contributor to the political art that came out of the crisis.