Honors 102 Final

Sor Juana

-1648-1695

-last great poet of spanish golden age

-nun

-considered 10th muse

Sor Filotea

Bishop of Puebla, criticizes Sor Juana for studying and writing on secular subjects

The Response (Sor Juana)

-response to Sor Filotea’s criticisms

-1st feminist manifesto

-she can’t suppress her drive to keep learning

Structure of response

Exordium - intro

Narratio - context (Sor Juana’s personal narrative)

Proposito and Partitio - claim/argument

Confirmatio and Refutatio - rebuttal and confirmation

modesty topos (Sor Juana)

humble in relation to what they have written

Phaeton (Sor Juana)

wants to drives Helios chariot, falls and dies. Warning against reaching for something that is too high

The Magnificat (Sor Juana)

-Virgin Mary created poetry in the song

-connects to beginning of response

Madama Butterfly

3 act, Italian Opera. Cho-Cho San a faithful but doomed geisha in love with B.F. Pinkerton. Everyone but Butterfly knows the Navy lieutenant will break her heart and ruin her life.

Frenulum (MB)

length determines sound

Lyric Italian (MB)

basis for vowel structure in opera

Giacomo Puccini

-1859-1924

-wrote Madama Butterfly

-lived in Milan

-studies german and french opera

Leit-Motif (MB)

recurrent theme that represents a character, object, or emotion

Italian Opera

solo singer is the focus and the orchestra plays a subordinate role

Characters in Madama Butterfly

Cho-Cho San, Suzuki, Pinkerton, Kate, Sharpless, Goro, Prince Yamadori, The Bonze

Syncopation (MB)

stress is placed in between pulse of music

Exoticism (MB)

trying to give a taste of something very far away

Aria (MB)

solo in a opera, accompanied by orchestra

Interpreter of Maladies

-published in 1999

-collection of short stories

-art is present in all stories

Jhumpa Lahiri

-from India

-writing and reading to transcend loneliness

A Temporary Matter (IM)

-many things in the story are temporary - power outage, pregnancy, beauty, love, etc.

-”used to” language

-rituals (story game)

-Art of throwing a party

Mrs. Sen’s (IM)

-Art of photography

-food prep as social connection

-Conversations with Eliot and fishmongerer

-closet of Saris = pile of dreams

Sexy (IM)

-mistress clothes = trying on diff identity

-Art of caligraphy, drawing, photography, maps

-loneliness theme

-Tapestry of Goddess Kali = time death and destruction, connection between art and memry

Blessed House (IM)

-fine line between love and hate

-Art of souvenirs, memories, music, Twinkle, religion

-Twinkle is portrayed as feminine divine (compared to virgin Mary and kali)

Interpreter of Maladies (short story)

-Kapasi’s 3 fantasies - courtly love, exchanging letters, touch

-no true epiphany for Mr. Kapsi or Mrs. Das but they both realize something

-book of genesis connection (language shapes humanity)

The 3rd and final continent (IM)

-immigration story

-Mrs. Croft marrys Mala and narrator

-Rituals - “splendid!”

Simone de Beauvoir

-1908-1986

-youngest to pass agregation exam

-public intellectual, active in feminist and decolonial movement

-born Catholic in Paris

-lifelong open relationship with Sarte

Background (Ethics)

-Occupation of Paris in WWII

-Sarte was imprisoned —> Beauvoir writes ethics

-Beauvoir was dismissed from teaching by Nazis

Existentialism (Ethics)

“existence precedes essence”, humans are not predetermined we create ourselves, there is no true definition of existence

Deontology (Ethics)

an action is good if it expresses duty to will a universal maxim, treat humanity as an end it itself

Consequentialism/Utilitarianism (Ethics)

ends justify the means

virtue ethics (ethics)

action flows from virtue so virtuous intentions matter more than results

existential ethics (ethics)

means and ends both matter

Bad Faith (ethics)

-faux self-deception

-failure to take responsibility for actions

-failure to recognize situational limitations

-failure to treat/view other people with respect as rational human beings

Good Faith (ethics)

-living and choosing in a way that invokes fairness, authenticity, and honesty about ones bias or limitations

-respect for another’s dignity and freedom

Freedom and Transcendence (Ethics)

-foundation of human subjectivity

-ability to make choices and act as an ethical agent and take responsibility for choices

-create yourself in way you want to

Facticity and Immanence (ethics)

-elements of self and life that one doesn’t choose

-”just the way it is”

Willing ones Facticity (ethics)

knowing one is fundamentally free but choosing unfreedom as motivation for actions

mutual recognition (ethics)

condition for free subjectivity, recognizing another person as being like me because they have freedom but they are also unlike me in other ways

Negative freedom (ethics)

-baseline freedom

-universal, indeterminate, empty of content

-freedom from authority or limitations

Positive freedom (ethics)

-freedom of self-determination

-freedom to become oneself through specific choices and actions

-ethical type of freedom

Ambiguities according to Beauvoir

we must not be paralyzed by ambiguities and lack of absolutes, we must act amidst them

Antinomy (ethics)

a real or apparent contradiction between two conclusions, both of which seem justified

2 futures (ethics)

present and future = continuous, present contains future

present v.s. future = separate future breaks from present

pure negativity (ethics)

‘pure’ freedom because man is originally a negativity

creative negativity

‘constructive’ freedom of negation; the creative metabolization of reality

WEB Du Bois

-first AA to receive a PhD from Harvard

-writes during the failure of reconstruction

-” the souls of black folk.”

The Great Migration

-6 million

-2 waves = wwi to wwii and then after wwii

-black soldiers come back from Europe and want to be treated better

-red summer

Langston Hughes

-1907-1960

-born in Missouri, grew up in Kansas and Ohio

-Harlem Renaissance Poet

-rejects white standards and embraces black folk culture

-celebrates everyday people

-talked about white patronage in Harlem

Gladys Bentley

-1907-1960

-performer at Clam House

-drag king/openly lesbian

-married best friend to stop Mccarthy getting to her

Josephine Baker

changing american culture to appease white culture but keeping black Vaudeville

Saroy

-a non-segregated nightclub in Harlem - non-stop music

-tension between: black cultural expression and white exoticization

Claude Mckay

-Jamican but spent most time in U.S.

-”if we must die” —> about race riots (sonnet like)

Double Consciousness (WEB Du Bois)

-condition of black artistic expression

-always looking at yourself through eyes of others

-horrible to self-esteem

Heritage by Countee Cullen

-written in trochaic tetrameter (unconventional, opposite of norm)

-2 voices

-”so I lie”

Zora Neale Hurston

-1891-1960

-writer, anthropologist, folklorist, filmmaker

-grew up in an all-black town in Florida

-worked as a maid

How it Feels to be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurson

-experienced double-conciousness and white patronage at early age

-likes performing black culture to white audiences

-jazz club - white man is the unsophisticated one

Charlotte Osgood Mason

-white philanthropist that sponsored black artists

-wanted specific art

-encouraged stereotypes

Negro speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes

-black history is linked to rivers

-Abe Lincoln witnessed people being bought and sold while traveling down the Mississippi

Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

-written to be spoken like blues is sung

-performing to fit white expectations has worn the blues singer out

Nella Larson (Passing)

-immigrant parents

-born in Chicago

-maybe the “dark child” and couldn’t pass

-accused of plagiarism

-received a Guggenheim

-husband cheated on her with a white woman

Rhinelander Case (Passing)

-wealthiest families in NY

-secretly married - Alice was mixed, his dad didn’t approve

-forced to divorce when family discovered her race

Beauty in Passing

-described in white standards

-Clare’s beauty is described in 2 different ways when she’s white and when she’s black

Themes in Passing

-beauty standards

-race pride

-frustration with color line

-colorism

-belonging,heritage, family

-marriage and hetero expectations

-respectability, upper middle class propriety, socially conventional behavior

-Masquerade, Mask, Performance

Characters in Passing

Irene - full of fears and denial but controlling

Brian - detached, mocking, angry, unhappy

Clare - Mysterious, melancholy, “having”

August Wilson (Ma Rainey)

-born in Pittsburgh

-single mom

-1 of 10 plays

-century cycle

Themes in Ma Rainey

-black music in white industry

-south fan base v.s. North financial base

-group participation v.s. individual development

-working with/for white people

-waiting

Getrude Ma" Rainey

-1886-1939

-Mother of the Blues

-loved fashion, theatrical

-parents performed in minstrel shows

-bisexual, gender-bended

The Band (Ma Rainey)

-Cutler - leader of group, think they should accept racism

-Slowdrag - have fun, white men don’t

-Toledo - can read, wants to fight racism

-Levee - artistic, angry, would-be diva, younger, please white audience

The Execs (Ma Rainey)

Sturdyvant - anxious about Ma, wants power

Irvin - prides himself about his relationship with black people, told how to do his job

Ma Rainey and her Posse

Ma Rainey - has the power, gets what she wants, demands respect

Sylvester - Ma’s nephew, has a stutter

Dussie Mae - Ma’s Protege