The Interdisciplinary Juxtaposition of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston by John Lawlor and David Leight

The Interdisciplinary Juxtaposition of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston by John Lawlor and David Leight According to Maryemma Graham archival research in support of these courses, in the introduction to her Teaching African it puts forth a case study of African American American Literature: Teory and Practice, while writers Zora Neale Hurston and Richard the teaching of literature needs to be informed Wright to show how students can understand by theory, “…teachers do not want to be and break through the dichotomy often posed handed down judgments about any literature, between the two writers’ perspectives. and especially not about African American Scholars have long contrasted Hurston literature. Tey do want to be assisted with the and Wright as representatives of opposing process of engaging new literatures critically and ideologies, not least because of their very holistically” (2). Her 1998 collection of essays public feud; however, more recent research by teachers explores ways in which literature has pointed to the ways in which they shared teachers can inform theory through the interests and advocacies. Historical social consideration of multiple contexts and active environmental factors impacted both writers, engagement with those context. Only through and both sought to defne their identities while such discussions about the actualization of altering the racially oppressive social context literary theory and scholarship, she contends, in which they were writing. As this paper will can students and faculty more fully articulate demonstrate, their participation in the Federal and understand the relationships between texts. Writers Project (FWP) during the Great To that end, this paper considers Depression extends recent research on the pair the interrelation of history and literature as a and the teaching of African American literature mutually supportive interdisciplinary study by showing how teaching their historical texts and teaching approach that integrates historical in context with their literary texts leads to a documents as contextual information. After more comprehensive understanding of both. describing the authors’ linked courses and 50 Community College Humanities Review THE LINKED COURSES Norris and Grifth provided one of many early links between the courses, and early Te interdisciplinary approach ex- iterations of the course included fairly obvious plained in this paper derives from a history/ links, such as Walt Whitman’s role in the Civil literature class co-taught for about ten years War, William Dean Howells’ “Editha” and the by the authors that merged a traditional Spanish American War, Jack London’s “Te American history since the Civil War course Law of Life” and Social Darwinism, memoirs by with a similarly traditional post-Civil War Booker T. Washington and Zitkala Ša, Upton American literature survey course. While ostensibly stand-alone courses, the two have been co-requisites for Te core premise behind the history/ students, with both instructors in the literature course is that writers exist in classroom for the full duration of each and report on history period; in efect, the courses are fused. Te core premise behind the history/ literature course is that writers exist in and Sinclair’s Te Jungle and the meat-packing report on history. Teir writings help clarify industry, Modernist responses to World War I, period concepts, and values and, in doing so, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revised” and the writers serve as agents of change, seeking to Stock Market Crash of 1929, and the Harlem explore and, often, remedy societal ills. Renaissance. In designing the course, the As a representative example, the class authors sought intersecting points such as these. contrasts alternative presentations of narratives, Toward this end, the authors initially created a such as Frank Norris’s exploration of progressive series of “cases” through cross referencing Te era corporate greed in his 1902 short story, American Pageant history textbook with Te “A Deal in Wheat.” After the class reads and Norton Anthology of American Literature. discusses the story, it views D.W. Grifth’s 1909 flm “A Corner in Wheat,” which was IDENTIFYING HISTORICAL based on the Norris story and several of his DOCUMENTS other works, including the 1903 novel, Te Pit. Norris sought to expose abusive corporate While survey textbooks ofer a wealth practices. In so doing, both Norris and Grifth of links—and more and more frequently represent author as social activist. Te class include descriptions of cultural, historical, and focuses primarily on alternative endings of social context—their oferings are necessarily the story and flm. Te story ends with the limited. Te authors have subsequently main character, a former farmer, at the mercy supplemented this basic course matrix of the robber barons, caught in the breadlines with research at the Rutherford B. Hayes and then, as Norris writes, in the capitalist Presidential Center (HPC), the National machine. By contrast, the end of the Grifth Archives and Records Administration (NARA), flm fnds the principle robber baron dead, and the Library of Congress (LOC). Te killed in a suitably ironic accident at his own object of the research was to access and acquire mill. Te class is able to see how the history primary source documents and media (print, of the progressive movement can be framed audio, video, images) to deepen the authors’ diferently for diverse audiences and media. knowledge and students’ learning experiences. Spring 2017 51 Trough active engagement of literary study Te class reviews each of the three with the documentary history of the period, documents separately for how the images and both teachers and students can discover how texts provide opportunities for inquiry into narratives are constructed. racial injustice. Tomas Nast’s illustration Both of the authors participated in “Patience on Monument” ofers students the National Endowment for the Humanities a sense of the nature and extent of racism (NEH)-funded “Landmark” workshop, Progress prevalent in the United States in the post-Civil and Poverty, at the Hayes Presidential Center in War era both textually and graphically. In Freemont, Ohio, which provided opportunities text, the monument’s inscriptions include nine for joint research for relevant course materials. relating to slavery, four relating to the Civil Documents scanned and later included in War, and eighteen that speak to injustice during the course ranged from letters to Hayes from the reconstruction era. Examples of slavery Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, inscriptions are “Branded and Manacled” and petitions from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and “Knowledge a Closed Book.” “Fort Pillow Susan B. Anthony, and stereographs and Massacre,” a Civil War reference, represents reports from Carlisle Indian School founder the extreme risk that African-American soldiers Captain Richard Pratt—all relevant to (USCT) faced in their fght for freedom if the letters, memoirs, and stories involving captured by Confederate forces. Post-war text treatment of African Americans, women, and includes several references to violence and the Native Americans, respectively. fact that, according to the text, “[a] Negro has no rights which a white man is bound to respect.” Several Literary treatment of African-Americans in lengthy inscriptions are quotes the post-Civil War era to 1932 is hardly less from newspapers of the era. stunning, if more subtle at times. Beyond the text, the graphics tell a story of abject horror. An USCT veteran in tattered Among the documents accessed at clothing sits upon the monument with his the Hayes Center Library, three key images right hand holding his head. His rife is at his focus understanding on the rampant racism feet. At the base of the monument are the dead of American society in the post-Civil War era. bodies of his wife, clutching a dead baby in her Tomas Nast’s political cartoon “Patience on arms with another bloody dead child nearby. a Monument” portrays an African-American Flanking the monument on the right side are Civil War soldier (USCT) in tatters, standing scenes of a lynching and an orphanage on fre. on a monument inscribed with slavery facts A man with “KKK” on his hat looks on. Nast and reconstruction era injustices and racial portrays a lamppost lynching on the left. Te violence. Te second document is an article by aggregate impact of the text and graphics is Sterling A. Brown entitled “Negro Character as stunning. Seen by White Authors” that identifed seven Literary treatment of African- racial stereotypes. Te third document is an Americans in the post-Civil War era to 1932 illustration of an African-American religious is hardly less stunning, if more subtle at times. revival meeting in Florida with accompanying In a second document shared with the class, caption. poet and literature professor Sterling A. Brown 52 Community College Humanities Review Richard Wright in his study identifes seven stereotypes in his 1933 article, (aka DJ Spooky) takes D. W. Grifth’s 1915 “Negro Character as Seen by White Authors.” Birth of a Nation and adds trance audio and Brown’s list includes “Te Contented Slave,” visual enhancement with periodic narrative. “Te Wretched Freeman,” Te Comic Negro,” In all, seven clips provide visualization of the “Te Brute Negro,” “Te Tragic Mulatto,” “Te stereotypes. Of the seven, two were shown Local Color Negro,” and the “Exotic Primitive,” to the class. One portrayed the “Contented and Brown provides detailed examples drawn Slave,” ironically with a “black-faced” actor from literature for each of the above. One fulflling a central role in the clip. Essentially a of the exemplar works Brown references is video step out of the Dunning School of Civil Tomas Dixon’s Te Clansman, published in War historiography that bemoaned the “Lost 1907. While Brown notes that Dixon’s “kind Cause,” this clip represents slaves as happy and of writing is in abeyance today,” he did write well treated in captivity. that Dixon’s stories gained “a dubious sort of Te second clip is much more volatile.

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