Black Literary Suite: Kansas Authors Edition

This collection consists of a single PDF containing all the posters from the Black Literary Suite: Kansas Authors Edition exhibit, as well as the audio commentary for each.Although not as popularly associated with African American literature as some other areas of the United States, there is a rich tradition of black writing in the Midwest, including in the state of Kansas. A number of important African American authors were born or lived in the Sunflower State, and their work often reflects their time in Kansas. This Black Literary Suite exhibit highlights four important black writers—Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Frank Marshall Davis, and Kevin Young—with Kansas connections

Setting his house in order: the crisis of paternity in James Baldwin's Giovanni's room

In this thesis, I argue that James Baldwin's critically neglected second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956), constitutes a necessary and proper addition to the literature that is recognized more widely as part of the author's personal canon. Perhaps the biggest area of scholarly research on Baldwin's writings is his mapping of paternity, yet critics consistently fail to realize the many ways in which Giovanni's Room contributes to this scholarly discussion. I argue that Baldwin consciously embeds a homoerotic subtext in the character of David's father, suggesting that the character is by no means as purely and uncomplicatedly straight as critics have read him heretofore, and that Giovanni's Room, while necessarily a product of its generally homophobic social moment, serves as a sustained critique of the ideological system that queer theorist Lee Edelman calls reproductive futurism. In this system, parenthood becomes the true marker of an individual's subjectivity and worth, and the figure of The Child (different from actual, individual children) becomes the ultimate symbol of societal value; I suggest that the mental, physical, and emotional crises of the novel's main and supporting characters are caused by their failure to fully participate in this system, which shapes the values of the world in which they live. I further suggest that the many autobiographical resonances present in the novel indicate that Baldwin might have looked on Giovanni's Room as a chance to continue working out in writing his complicated relationship with his late stepfather, David Baldwin, Sr. I contend that throughout the text, Baldwin employs literary strategies designed to call attention to the pronounced role that paternity plays in the novel, suggesting that in at least one key way, Giovanni's Room fits squarely within the traditions that shape Baldwin's canonical work. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Integration and transformation: an examination of the role of sexuality in formulating a queer/crip subjectivity for people with disabilities

This thesis investigates the current cultural discourses surrounding sexuality in persons with disabilities and argues that in order to move away from existing conceptions of personhood and citizenship that are rooted in ableism and are thus possibilities only for nondisabled persons, persons with disabilities and their nondisabled allies must embrace the queer potential advocated by crip theorists, who have so usefully applied the insights of queer theorists to the field of disability studies. I will begin by interrogating the relationship of disability studies and feminist theory by examining the societal/cultural construction of normative bodies. Next, I will focus on how notions of citizenship and who constitutes "proper" or "acceptable" political actors are rooted in ideologies of ability, ideologies which are themselves often predicated on the assumption of "normal" sexual functioning, among other normative assumptions. Then I will explore the historical policing of the sexuality of disabled persons and argue that access to sexual knowledge and expression is crucial to helping disabled persons create positive self-identities and a sense of themselves as subjects. Finally, I will conduct a critical reading of these issues on the television show Glee, which exemplifies the failings of the existing cultural models of disability and sexuality but also provides examples of the power and promise of a queer crip subjectivity, and briefly compare Glee to other televisual representations of disabled sexuality. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries