Framing Statement: I chose to focus on the topic of rap narratives and legal culpability because I noticed a common theme amongst many of my favorite rap songs: the lyrics discuss social stratification. While I had an awareness of how racial identity contributes to the culture rap music, I was not informed about the origins … [Read more…]
Rap music is treated as a form of commercial propaganda within the American justice system, often held culpable for its direct context without acknowledging its artistic potential. Additionally, rap music is often marginalized for consumption by the ethnic and racial majority it was invented by. Thus, any cultural context awarded through rap music is denoted … [Read more…]
In Adam Bede, Hetty’s confession to Dina Morris illuminates the dissonance between testimonies made in religious settings and those made in legal ones. Using Kreuger’s argument, this dissonance is not reflective of variable levels of culpability, but rather reflective of an opportunity to “’read between the lines’” and further understand how the defendant wishes to … [Read more…]
For project number two, I’m considering focusing on rap narratives, their representative consciousness, and the different legal themes within them. Additionally, using the lens of CRT, I’ll dissect the racial delineation of culpability relative to narratives presented in rap music. The primary texts I’ll be using, outside of CRT, will be THUG and Sheppelle’s forward … [Read more…]
Viewing The Hate U Give (THUG)by Angie Thomas through Stefancic and Delgado’s Critical Race Theory illuminates moments when the main character of THUG, Starr struggles between black nationalism and assimilation. Through Thomas’s representative consciousness of Starr, the reader is able to witness her actively choose to assimilate at her majorly white school, “I just have … [Read more…]
Questions for Engaging With Barrett Browning Why insert a story of romantic love in stanzas IX-XII? Think about how it brings the action to a crisis as well as the way it supplements the speaker’s reflections in stanzas IV-VIII. EBB inserts the story of romantic love in stanzas IX-XII, because it humanizes the mother prior … [Read more…]
Junot Diaz’s short stories “Drown” and “Boyfriend” in his book Drown include representations of central aspects of the theories proposed in Delgado and Stefancic’s book Critical Race Theory. In Diaz’s short story “Drown”, the narrator, Yunior, reflects on his past with specific memories regarding his former best friend Beto. As Yunior continues to proceed with … [Read more…]
Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick is a “…quintessential rags-to-riches story…” (Hoeller ix). The story’s main theme is America’s “… central myth, the American Dream…”, which Suzanne Keen would regard as a Masterplot, or “… one of the major ‘metanarratives’ or governing fictions by which western civilization understands itself.” (Hoeller ix; 88). Richard Hinter (Ragged Dick) stars … [Read more…]
The readings “Narrative, ethics, and empathy” by Utell, The Baby in The Well by Bloom, and “Narrative Emotion” by Keen discuss the potential for narrative to elicit empathy from the reader/audience. Each of the readings also clarified the specifications of narrative in order to reach this potential. Bloom discussed the different response to names, as … [Read more…]
Masterplots are familiar and well-used organizational methods for narratives, which are used to convey similar plots but can differ greatly based on the story line of the narrative. Keen differentiates plot from storyline, explaining that the plot is a strand of causal events while the story is a strand of sequential events. An example of … [Read more…]
