African American Literature - Freedom and Sexuality

The literature he created became part of the Harlem Renaissance Movement. The term Harlem Renaissance refers to an artistic, cultural, and social growing of writing about race and the African American's place in American life during the early 1920s and 1930s. ... The literature appealed to the African American middle class and to the white book-buying public. Magazines as The Crisis, a monthly journal of the NAACP, and Opportunity, an official publication of the Urban League, employed Harlem Renaissance writers on their editorial staff; published poetry and short stories by black writer...

• Word Count: 1518
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Through poetic verse Hughes exhibits life of the African American trials and tribulations, as Sexton creates a similar aura of women in her work. She casts the burden of life as a woman onto her readers as Hughes does of the African American culture. "In his attempt to capture the lives of everyday African Americans he deals with subjects like prostitution, racism, lynching, and teenage pregnancy. ... Following in 1965 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was given the first literary magazine travel award from the International Congress of Cultural Freedom. ......

• Word Count: 3441
• Approx Pages: 14
• Grade Level: High School

Interpreting her quest for freedom and self-affirmation as representative of that of many African Americans and American women-especially black American women-she presents incidents from her life that illustrate conditions faced by many persons. ... She tells, for example, of bone-weary cotton pickers caught in economic enslavement within the general impoverishment of African Americans; a threat to Uncle Willie's life by the Ku Klux Klan; the complete segregation in Stamps, with its resulting ignorance and prejudice on the part of both whites and African Americans; a confrontation between...

• Word Count: 1226
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In textbooks, literature, and films alike, the African American struggle to be viewed simply as "human" through the eyes of their white counterparts is portrayed through images of horrible inequality, police brutality, and violations of the United States constitution, which guarantees equal protection of all American citizens under the law. ... In opposition, many people who refute the claim that there are similarities between the gay and the black struggle for Civil Rights in the United States are of African American descent, and this, perhaps, is because of certain a animosity to t...

• Word Count: 1532
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

(freedom in the U.S.) ... (freedom in the U.S.) ... One such freedom is symbolic speech. The American Flag is sometimes burned as a form of symbolic speech toward the government or something it has done. ... (Freedom in the United States) Burning the American flag is considered a form of symbolic speech and therefore protected under the First Amendment. ...

• Word Count: 2745
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

His work has been used in many fields of study including psychology, literature, and education (Thorne and Henley, 2001). ... The book appealed to Jung because psychiatry would give him the freedom to pursue his interest in religious speculation. ... Jung agreed with a lot of Freud's writings but he did not, however, believe in the strong emphasize Freud placed on sexuality. ... After the war, Jung traveled widely, visiting, for example, tribal people in Africa, America, and India (Boeree, 1997). ... Jung developed many theories that are used in fields such as psychology, literature,...

• Word Count: 1509
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

I want to be able to walk around with confidence of the person I have become which will not only give me confidence but will give me freedom. ... Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn't think of me as one of its own.... These peoples American dream is to survive. ... Christina Boufis gives a great example on her short story "Teaching Literature at the County Jail.... Barack Obama's speech "A more perfect union" shows how the African American community has been prevented from achieving their American dream d...

• Word Count: 2444
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

As he discovered his sexuality in his teen-age years, he continued to bear the burden of oppression and discrimination, but now it attacked on another front. ... In 1956 homosexuality was a taboo subject, more so when addressed by an African-American writer, Susan Stryker an associate professor of Gender and Women's studies at The University of Arizona remarked, "In Giovanni's Room, David is faced with the same type of decision; on the surface he faces a choice between his American fiancée and his European boyfriend, but ultimately, like Baldwin, he must grapple with bein...

• Word Count: 2134
• Approx Pages: 9

The Boer War (1899–1902), which was fought by the British to establish control over the Boer republics in South Africa, marked the beginning of rebellion against British imperialism. ... A tension in writing between the popular and the esoteric, and the popular and specialized, the commercial and the avant-garde, became a feature of twentieth-century literature. ... Before 1914, English literature and ideas were in many ways still harking back to the nineteenth century: after 1918, Modern begins to define the twentieth century. ... There is also the fact that there is much more literatur...

• Word Count: 10566
• Approx Pages: 42