DOCSLIB.ORG

2015-16 Tenacity Challenge English Titles

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
2015-16 Tenacity Challenge English Titles 2015-16 Tenacity Challenge English Titles Reminder: teams cannot choose the same text two years in a row. Chris Abani - Song for Night Part Inferno and part Paradise Lost, Song for Night is the story of a West African boy soldier's lyrical, terrifying, yet beautiful journey through the nightmare landscape of a brutal war in search of his lost platoon. The book is written in a ghostly voice, with each chapter headed by a line of the unique sign language the mute child warriors have invented (Google Books). Contains mature themes. Julia Alvarez - In the Time of the Butterflies It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—“The Butterflies.” In this novel, the voices of all four sisters speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule (Barnes and Noble). Rudolfo Anaya - Bless Me, Ultima Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will test the bonds that tie him to his people, and discover himself in the pagan past, in his father's wisdom, and in his mother's Catholicism (Hachette Book Group). Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Beautiful Struggle Paul Coates was an enigmatic god to his sons: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old- school disciplinarian and new-age believer in free love, an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement dedicated to telling the true history of African civilization. Most of all, he was a wily tactician whose mission was to carry his sons across the shoals of inner-city adolescence—and through the collapsing civilization of Baltimore in the Age of Crack—and into the safe arms of Howard University, where he worked so his children could attend for free. (Penguin Random House). Christina Garcia - Dreaming in Cuban Here is the dreamy and bittersweet story of a family divided by politics and geography by the Cuban revolution. It is the family story of Celia del Pino, and her husband, daughter and grandchildren, from the mid-1930s to 1980. Celia's story mirrors the magical realism of Cuba itself, a country of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption (Amazon). Jamaica Kincaid – Annie John In this story of a young girl growing up in Antigua, Annie has until recently lived an idyllic life within her mother’s benign shadow. When she turns twelve, Annie’s life changes in ways that are often mysterious to her. She begins to question the cultural assumptions of her island world; at school she instinctively rebels against authority; and most frighteningly, her mother, seeing Annie as a “young lady,” ceases to be the source of unconditional adoration and takes on a new and unfamiliar guise of adversary (Amazon). Rigoberta Menchú – I, Rigoberta Menchú The remarkable life of Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant woman, reflects on the experiences common to many Indian communities in Latin America. Menchú suffered gross injustice and hardship in her early life: her brother, father and mother were murdered by the Guatemalan military. She learned Spanish and turned to catechistic work as an expression of political revolt as well as religious commitment. Menchú vividly conveys the traditional beliefs of her community and her personal response to feminist and socialist ideas. Above all, these pages are illuminated by the enduring courage and passionate sense of justice of an extraordinary woman (Amazon). Ernesto Quinonez - Bodega Dreams In Spanish Harlem, Willy Bodega is king. Need college tuition for your daughter? Start-up funds for your fruit stand? Bodega can help. He gives everyone a leg up, in exchange only for loyalty--and a steady income from the drugs he pushes. Lyric, inspired, and darkly funny, this powerful debut novel brilliantly evokes the trial of Chino, a smart, promising young man to whom Bodega turns for a favor. Chino is drawn to Bodega's street-smart idealism, but soon finds himself over his head, navigating an underworld of switchblade tempers, turncoat morality, and murder (Amazon). Jesmyn Ward - Salvage the Bones A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn’t show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting (Goodreads). Contains mature themes. Richard Wright - Native Son Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America (Barnes and Noble). .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • How Bigger Was Born Anew
    Fall 2020 29 ow Bier as Born new datation Reuration and Double Consciousness in Nambi E elle’s Native Son Isaiah Matthew Wooden This essay analyzes Nambi E. Kelley’s stage adaptation of Native Son to consider the ways tt Aicn Aeicn is itlie by n constitte to cts o etion t sharpens particular focus on how Kelley reinvigorates Wright’s novel’s searing social and cil cities by ctiely ein te oisin etpo o oble consciosness n iin ne o, enin, n se to te etpo, elleys Native Son extends the debates about “the problem of the color line” that Du Bois’s writing helped engender at te beinnin o te tentiet centy into te tentyst n, in so oin, opens citicl space to reckon with the persistent and pernicious problem of anti-Black racism. ewords adaptation, refguration, double consciousness, Native Son, Nambi E. Kelley This essay takes as a central point of departure the claim that African American drama is vitalized by and, indeed, constituted through acts of refguration. It is such acts that endow the remarkably capacious genre with any sense or semblance of coherence. Retion is notably a word with multiple signifcations. It calls to mind processes of representation and recalculation. It also points to matters of meaning-making and modifcation. The pref re does important work here, suggesting change, alteration, or even improvement. For the purposes of this essay, I use etion to refer to the strategies, practices, methods, and techniques that African American dramatists deploy to transform or give new meaning to certain ideas, concepts, artifacts, and histories, thereby opening up fresh interpretive and defnitional possibilities and, when appropriate, prompting much-needed reckonings.
    [Show full text]
  • Publishing Blackness: Textual Constructions of Race Since 1850
    0/-*/&4637&: *ODPMMBCPSBUJPOXJUI6OHMVFJU XFIBWFTFUVQBTVSWFZ POMZUFORVFTUJPOT UP MFBSONPSFBCPVUIPXPQFOBDDFTTFCPPLTBSFEJTDPWFSFEBOEVTFE 8FSFBMMZWBMVFZPVSQBSUJDJQBUJPOQMFBTFUBLFQBSU $-*$,)&3& "OFMFDUSPOJDWFSTJPOPGUIJTCPPLJTGSFFMZBWBJMBCMF UIBOLTUP UIFTVQQPSUPGMJCSBSJFTXPSLJOHXJUI,OPXMFEHF6OMBUDIFE ,6JTBDPMMBCPSBUJWFJOJUJBUJWFEFTJHOFEUPNBLFIJHIRVBMJUZ CPPLT0QFO"DDFTTGPSUIFQVCMJDHPPE publishing blackness publishing blackness Textual Constructions of Race Since 1850 George Hutchinson and John K. Young, editors The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2013 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2016 2015 2014 2013 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Publishing blackness : textual constructions of race since 1850 / George Hutchinson and John Young, editiors. pages cm — (Editorial theory and literary criticism) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 472- 11863- 2 (hardback) — ISBN (invalid) 978- 0- 472- 02892- 4 (e- book) 1. American literature— African American authors— History and criticism— Theory, etc. 2. Criticism, Textual. 3. American literature— African American authors— Publishing— History. 4. Literature publishing— Political aspects— United States— History. 5. African Americans— Intellectual life. 6. African Americans in literature. I. Hutchinson, George, 1953– editor of compilation. II. Young, John K. (John Kevin), 1968– editor of compilation PS153.N5P83 2012 810.9'896073— dc23 2012042607 acknowledgments Publishing Blackness has passed through several potential versions before settling in its current form.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison: Conflicting Masculinities
    W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1994 Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison: Conflicting Masculinities H. Alexander Nejako College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Nejako, H. Alexander, "Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison: Conflicting Masculinities" (1994). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539625892. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-nehz-v842 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RICHARD WRIGHT AND RALPH ELLISON: CONFLICTING MASCULINITIES A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by H. Alexander Nejako 1994 ProQuest Number: 10629319 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10629319 Published by ProQuest LLC (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.
    [Show full text]
  • Materiality and Masculinity in African American Literature. (2014) Directed by Dr
    GIBSON, SCOTT THOMAS, Ph.D. Heavy Things: Materiality and Masculinity in African American Literature. (2014) Directed by Dr. SallyAnn H. Ferguson. 222 pp. Heavy Things illustrates how African American writers redefine black manhood through metaphors of heaviness, figured primarily through their representation of material objects. Taking the literal and figurative weight the narrator’s briefcase in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man as a starting point, this dissertation examines literary representations of material objects, including gifts, toys, keepsakes, historical documents, statues, and souvenirs as modes of critiquing the materialist foundations of manhood in the United States. Historically, materialism has facilitated white male domination over black men by associating property ownership with both whiteness and manhood. These writers not only reject materialism as a vehicle of oppression but also reveal alternative paths along which black men can thrive in a hostile American society. Each chapter of my analysis is structured around specific kinds of “heavy” objects—gifts, artifacts, and memorials—that liberate black men from white definitions of manhood based in possessive materialism. In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying, gifts reestablished ties between alienated black men and their communities. In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and John Edgar Wideman’s Fatheralong, black sons attempt to reconcile their fraught relationships with their fathers through the recovery of historical artifacts. In Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days and Emily Raboteau’s The Professor’s Daughter, black men and women use commemorative objects such as monuments and memorials to reimagine black male abjection as a trope of healing.
    [Show full text]
  • STUDY GUIDE SEASON FOUR Introduction
    By NAMBI E. KELLEY based on the novel NATIVE SON by RICHARD WRIGHT Directed by PSALMAYENE 24 STUDY GUIDE SEASON FOUR Introduction “Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.”—Augusto Boal The purpose and goal of Mosaic’s education department is simple. Our program aims to further and cultivate students’ knowledge and passion for theatre and theatre education. We strive for complete and exciting arts engagement for educators, artists, our community, and all learners in the classroom. Mosaic’s education program yearns to be a conduit for open discussion and connection to help students understand how theatre can make a profound impact in their lives, in society, and in their communities. Mosaic Theater Company of DC is thrilled to have your interest and support! Catherine Chmura Arts Education Apprentice—Mosaic Theater Company of DC Written by Catherine Chmura, Khalid Y. Long, and Isaiah M. Wooden 2 NATIVE SON MOSAIC THEATER COMPANY of DC PRESENTS NATIVE SON By Nambi E. Kelley based on the novel NATIVE SON by Richard Wright Directed by Psalmayene 24 Set Designer: Ethan Sinnott Lighting Designer: William K. D’Eugenio Costume Designer: Katie Touart Projections Designer: Dylan Uremovich Sound Designer: Nick Hernandez Properties Designer: Willow Watson Movement Specialist: Tony Thomas* Production Stage Manager: Simone Baskerville* Dramaturg: Isaiah M. Wooden & Khalid Yaya Long Table of Contents Curriculum Connections: DC Public
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Wright and His Anxious Influence: on Ellison and Baldwin
    Richard Wright and his Anxious Influence: On Ellison and Baldwin And in this lies Wright's most important achievement: he has converted the American Negro impulse toward self-annihilation and "going underground" into a will to confront the world, to evaluate his experience honestly, and throw his findings unashamedly into the guilty conscience of America. – Ralph Ellison, “Richard Wright’s Blues” In Uncle Tom’s Children, in Native Son, and, above all, in Black Boy, I found expressed for the first time in my life, the sorrow, the rage, and the murderous bitterness which was eating up my life and the lives of those around me. His work was an immense liberation and revelation for me. He became my ally and my witness, and alas! my father. – James Baldwin, “Alas, Poor Richard” It is not easy being a father. Sigmund Freud was right, no matter how bizarre his evidential sources: the children will come for you. To be a father is to have children, to have them under your gaze, but also to set them freer than you may have ever intended. Fatherly authority is defined, in many ways, by the insistence of his subjects on the rights of refusal, contestation, and overcoming. That is what it means to have children. They are yours, if you are the father. They inherit you. But they also belong to themselves. And that belonging-to-self thing is largely generated by struggle, opposition, and overcoming. Parricide. Richard Wright is in this way very much the father of two of the most important African- American writers writing in his shadow: James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison.
    [Show full text]
  • Native Son Thesis
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO “Vocal and Physical Endurance that Lasts till the End.” Engaging Your Training in Native Son A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Master of Fine Arts in Theatre and Dance (Acting) by Terrance White Committee in charge: Marc Barricelli, Chair Eva Barnes Charles Oates Manuel Rotenberg 2017 © Terrance White, 2017 All rights reserved. The Thesis of Terrance White is approved and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2017 iii DEDICATION Dedicated to Zara Laniece Mitchell my beautiful niece. Any dreams you have in this world you chase them and uncle will be right there with you to support your entire journey. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page................................................................................................................ iii Dedication....................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents............................................................................................................ v List of Supplemental Files.............................................................................................. vi Acknowledgements........................................................................................................ vii Abstract of the Thesis....................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • RWN Dec1994.Pdf (4.462Mb)
    RICHARD WRIGHT SPECIAL :31 /\ C:< :30'( ISSUE Volume 3, Number 3 December 1994 Wright Film Biography Released Richard Wright-Black Boy, the new film biography of Richard Wright, premiered on December 2, 1994 at the Smith Robertson Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, Wright' s former school house. Attending were Julia Wright and her son, Malcolm, and Joanna Newsome, Wright's half-sister, now over 90 years old and living in Port Gibson, MS. The gala event brought together a host of friends of Mississippi Educational Televi­ sion, the film's sponsor and the production staff, notably the executive producers, Jef Judin and Guy Land and the film 's director Madison Davis Lacy, Ir. of Firethorn Pro­ ductions. Richard Wrighl-Black Boy made its tele­ vision debut December? onMississippi Edu­ cational Television and will air nationally on PBS in 1995. Funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Corpo­ ration for Public Broadcasting. The Ford Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Black Prograrruning Consortium, Southern Educational Commu­ nications Association, Independent Televi­ sion Service, and The Foundation for Public Broadcasting in Mississippi. It is distributed by California Newsreel of San Francisco. Richard Wright-Black Boy will be shown at the Modern Language Association Con­ vention in San Diego, the College Language Association Conference in Baton Rouge, Northeastern University in Boston, and at other educational venues to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Wright's
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding the Black Male's Quest for Identity As Illustrated Through
    Understanding the Black Male’s Quest for Identity as Illustrated through Native Son Martez Files The history of African-American writing merger will make them quest their own real is a complex subject. Since the foregrounding of identity, because they have become the emptied this literary canon there have been writers who out shell.” He contends that because Blackness is have attempted to present African-Americans as so diverse and Whiteness is so sovereign that Black agents of their social realities. These writers have people are becoming lost in the White world literally had to write Black people into history because their various character traits are because societal norms, historically, dehumanized suppressed by the oppressive presence of this group into anonymity. Some of the first Whiteness. His argument is one in which he writings of African-Americans that gained national presents Blacks as an “emptied-out shell” and attention are the ex-slave narratives which offer the another in which he echoes the sentiment that reader some clues as to what the human experience Whites are “sovereign,” meaning they reign of suffering was like for these people. In many supreme, even in Black literature. ways Black writers have mimicked the tradition of One might contend that Nejad does not take depicting Black characters battling human into account that this “emptied-out shell” to which experiences. Richard Wright is no different in he refers is not influenced first by White these literary pursuits as he also, expressly, sovereignty but by that of a Black parental figure. humanizes his characters. Nonetheless, some This is true in many African-American writings.
    [Show full text]
  • Forsíða Ritgerða
    Hugvísindasvið Tragic Figures of Race The Dilemma of Minority Races in Richard Wright’s and Nella Larsen’s Fiction B.A. Essay Heiðdís Einarsdóttir May 2012 University of Iceland School of Humanities Department of English Tragic Figures of Race The Dilemma of Minority Races in Richard Wright’s and Nella Larsen’s Fiction B.A. Essay Heiðdís Einarsdóttir Kt.: 200969-5379 Supervisor: Anna Heiða Pálsdóttir May 2012 Abstract The period between 1920 and 1940 in America was a time of raised awareness for people of color. They began to voice their eagerness to be accepted in their community. At this time black people had broken free from slavery. They were, however, not considered equal to white Americans and still had the ghost of slavery hanging over them. During this time in New York a group of people, black and white, formed an alliance to further their mutual interest to establish an identity for people of color and their acceptance amongst other Americans with the aim of social equality for all citizens of the United States of America. This movement was called the New Negro Movement but later referred to as the Harlem Literary Renaissance movement. The main focus of this essay is on this literary movement and in particular the writers Richard Wright and Nella Larsen. Wright’s novel Native Son (1940) and Larsen’s short stories “Passing” (1929) and “Quicksand” (1928) form the essay’s narrow focus. Wright centralizes on the poor lower class black American in Chicago between the 1920s and the 1930s, where his main character is an African American of a poor working class and the trouble he runs into.
    [Show full text]
  • The Trial of Bigger Thomas: Race, Gender, and Trespass
    Brooklyn Law School BrooklynWorks Faculty Scholarship 2006 The rT ial of Bigger Thomas: Race, Gender, and Trespass Bennett aC pers Brooklyn Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/faculty Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Evidence Commons, Law and Gender Commons, and the Law and Race Commons Recommended Citation 31 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 1 (2006-2007) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by BrooklynWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of BrooklynWorks. THE TRIAL OF BIGGER THOMAS: RACE, GENDER, AND TRESPASS I. BENNETT CAPERS* Richard Wright's Native Son,1 the first novel by an African American to be featured as a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club,2 was nothing short of groundbreaking in the annals of American literature. The novel opens with the sound of an alarm going off-Richard Wright's wake-up call to America to open its eyes and address issues of race and class3 -and ends with its protagonist Bigger Thomas awaiting execution for the rape and murder of a white woman. Though considered incendiary in the South-Native Son was banned in Birming- ham, Alabama, for example4-across the rest of the nation, Native Son debuted as a bestseller,5 and was lauded as an instant classic. 6 Although Richard Wright went on to complete other works, including his two-volume autobiography Black Boy (1945) and American Hunger (1977), the existential novel The Outsider * Associate Professor of Law, Hofstra Law School.
    [Show full text]
  • Words As Weapons: the Indeterminacy of Language, Race and Sexuality in Richard Wright
    Words as Weapons: The Indeterminacy of Language, Race and Sexuality in Richard Wright A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements Master of Arts in English University of Regina by Shane Derek Reoch Regina, Saskatchewan April, 1997 Copyright 1997: S.D. Reoch 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada Your fiIo Votm nlférenœ Our fi& Noire rdtdrence The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dlowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts f?om it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. From his earliest novel, Lawd Todav! (unpublished until 1963) to his last completed novel, The Lons Drearn (1958), American novelist Richard Wright (1908-60)understood that even the most rigidly ordered society is not static. Power is never harnessed entirely by an individual or group. Rather, it circulates indiscriminately through society, across racial, sexual and monetary borders, leaving everyone vulnerable to its flow.
    [Show full text]