Black American Dream as a Clash of Principles: Representations of the American Dream in Black American Political Poetry
| Thesis title in Czech: | Černošský americký sen jako střet principů: Zobrazení amerického snu v afroamerické angažované poezii. |
|---|---|
| Thesis title in English: | Black American Dream as a Clash of Principles: Representations of the American Dream in Black American Political Poetry |
| Key words: | Afroamerická poezie|americký sen|angažovaná poezie|Martin Luther King |
| English key words: | African American poetry|American dream|political poetry|Martin Luther King |
| Academic year of topic announcement: | 2022/2023 |
| Thesis type: | diploma thesis |
| Thesis language: | angličtina |
| Department: | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK) |
| Supervisor: | doc. PhDr. Mariana Machová, Ph.D. |
| Author: | hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept. |
| Date of registration: | 08.06.2023 |
| Date of assignment: | 08.06.2023 |
| Administrator's approval: | approved |
| Confirmed by Study dept. on: | 08.06.2023 |
| Date and time of defence: | 07.02.2024 00:00 |
| Date of electronic submission: | 12.01.2024 |
| Date of proceeded defence: | 07.02.2024 |
| Submitted/finalized: | committed by student and finalized |
| Opponents: | Mgr. Pavla Veselá, Ph.D. |
| Guidelines |
| The MA thesis will focus on the representations of the concept of the American Dream in Black American politically engaged poetry. From its origins in the Declaration of Independence (in the “pursuit of happiness”) the concept of the American Dream has been seen as problematic, with the idea of an “unalienable right” clashing with its being mutable and fleeting and potentially out of reach. The main goal of the thesis is to demonstrate that the American Dream has been present in the works of Black American poets as a potent, yet schizophrenic concept (with reference to Martin Luther King’s idea of “American schizophrenic personality") for decades, and possibly centuries, and its central ambiguity and the clash of principles has remained essentially the same, only the representations vary. Analyzing poems by Black poets from different periods the MA thesis will explore the concept of the Black American Dream as a myth to which, as James Baldwin put it, “we are clinging [and] which has nothing to do with the lives we lead.” Poems by Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Terrance Hayes, Amanda Gorman, Duriel E. Harris and others will be discussed, as well as selected essays on the topic by key African American thinkers from different historical periods (such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., or Henry Louis Gates). |
| References |
| Archer, John. “The Resilience of Myth: The Politics of the American Dream.” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 25, No. 2 (Spring 2014), 7-21. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24347714. Cullen, Jim. The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Finkelman, Paul. Slavery and the Founders: Dilemmas of Jefferson and his Contemporaries. New York: Routledge, 1995. Freehling, William W. “The Founding Fathers and Slavery.” The American Historical Review 77, No. 1 (February 1972), 81- 93.https://doi.org/10.2307/1856595. Hochschild, Jennifer. Facing Up to the American Dream. Princeton: Princeton University Press,1996. Le Blanc, Paul. Black Liberation and the American Dream: The Struggle for Racial and Economic Justice: Analysis, Strategy, Readings. London: Humanities Press, 2003. Ramey, Lauri. A History of African American Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Randall, Dudley. The Black Poets. New York: Bantam, 1985. Redding, Saunders Jay. To Make a Poet Black. New York: Cornell University Press, 1988. Schneider Zangrando, Joanna and Robert L. Zangrando. “Black Protest: A Rejection of the American Dream.” Journal of Black Studies 1, No. 2 (December 1970), 141-159. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2783799. Stout, Christopher Timothy and Danvy Le. “Living the Dream: Barack Obama and Blacks' Changing Perceptions of the American Dream.” Social Science Quarterly 93, No. 5 (December 2012), 1338-1359.https://www.jstor.org/stable/42864130. Turner, Charles H. “A Dream Deferred.” The Black Scholar 19, No. 1 (January/February 1988), 19-25.https://www.jstor.org/stable/41068040. |