Research Ideas

1. I'd like to look at the influence made by the Chinese servants in Palo Alto at the turn of the 20^th century. While Leland Stanford's servants were some of the first to come to the area, they later took up positions as cooks and janitors on the University campus starting in 1891; more servants accompanied incoming faculty, and still more arrived with the boom of Palo Alto and neighboring Mayfield. By 1900, there was a full-fledged Chinatown on El Camino, not far from where Stanford Avenue connects to it today. However, due to many Palo Alto residents objections against the Chinese, the "shanty town" was demolished not long after, and by 1910 even the number of employed servants in Palo Alto had dropped significantly. And few were left at all by 1920. I'd like to continue to research this more fully, and maybe concentrate on race relations rather than looking just at what the Chinese servants were doing and where they worked.
2. I'd also be interested in looking at the movement of Chinese servants and residents in San Francisco leading up to and immediately following the San Francisco earthquake. This subject came up peripherally to my research last year, but I was interested to find out more about the forging of immigration documents, or the claim that they were "destroyed in the fire" in 1906, and the creation of "Paper Sons" or "Paper Daughters"—illegal immigrants who were able to stay based on these false documents and the pity or confusion following the earthquake.
3. (You'll notice a theme among these topics . . .) I'm very interested at the artificial creation of China that took place in Chinatowns, particularly in San Francisco or San José (which was destroyed by fire and only recently excavated as an archaeological project through Stanford). My conception of China as a little kid was influenced heavily by what I saw in Chinatown, and its only relatively recently that I discovered many of my conceptions were based on hold-overs from the 19^th century, during which time China was under Manchu, rather than Han Chinese, rule. I'd like to look specifically at those hold-overs, whether through architecture, food, spoken language or origin among Chinatown residents, and the surrounding neighborhood's reaction or conceptions of them.

 

See you all in class tomorrow!

Research Paper possibilities...

I’m exploring a bunch of options for my research paper… and each one could be narrowed down too!

1. Recently, there has been a lot of attention around what has happened to the “black marriage” – an enduring marriage between two black individuals. Certain statistics show that 42% of black women will never get married, and those that do often end up divorced (as a living example, of the 3 sisters in my mom’s family and the 3 sisters in my father’s family, my mom is the only woman still married to a black man). Some critics blame the culture surrounding black women, or negative attention around black men, among other cultural issues. First, I’d hope to focus on historical traditions of the “black family” and “black marriage,” with sources such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Then I’d want to see how black marriage has changed throughout history, culminating with the Obama family effect. Finally, maybe I’d provide a glimpse of how some black writers and performers are reinventing hope in the black marriage (ex, the movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman) while others are encouraging black women to start considering the possibility of relationships with white men (ex, the movie Something New)… open to suggestions on this one

2. African-American entrepreneurs of the Gilded Age – still need to do some poking around on this one...

3. The Transcontinental Railroad – I’ve always been interested in this railroad’s effect on California’s growth in the mid-1800s. And Leland Stanford Sr was one of the “Big Four” barons that built the railroad!

Clearly it looks like I’ve spent more time thinking about the first one, but I definitely haven’t settled on it, so I’m open to feedback on all of them!

Response Paper on the Readings

On Higginbotham and Barkley Brown:

The Higginbotham and Barkley Brown pieces engage the reader in a discussion of what it means to study “Women’s History” and what it SHOULD mean to study “Women’s History.” Both authors acknowledge that women’s history is nearly impossible to understand as a cohesive unit, for the question of a woman’s race is constantly taken into consideration. Although they often cite similar sources, at times they seem at odds over what the appropriate solution is to the question of race in women’s studies.

From what I gather from her article, Higginbotham makes the claim that feminist scholars should not shy away from including race in their discussion. She argues that race is a social construct just like gender is, and should therefore receive the same consideration in scholarly thought. Citing Elizabeth Spelman, Higginbotham accuses white feminists of imposing two separate identities onto their black counterparts – the racial and the gender. This concern that “universal womanhood” has come to mean only “white womanhood” dominates her argument that gender cannot be understood outside of the context of woman’s race.

Elsa Barkley Brown, on the other hand, approaches the issue differently. She is concerned that a degree of “political correctness” has seeped into women’s history, which has required all scholars to “recognize the diversity” in women’s experiences for fear of being called insensitive. With her focus on “asymmetry” in women’s history, Barkley Brown does not deny that differences exist among the stories of women’s experiences, but she does not find that highlighting those differences is the only way to understand women’s history. Barkley Brown would disagree with Higginbotham in her assertion that the best way to address challenges in women’s studies is to highlight racial differences: Barkley Brown might consider that a cop-out from the harder task of identifying similarities among all women. Using the example of changes in white and black women’s participation in the labor force, she makes the point that women of different races have different experiences, but that their histories are interlocked – white women moved into the professional world because black women were moving into the service spots that white women were vacating. They share the same story, but different angles. This slice of women’s history can be understood in racial terms, but there can be no separation of white or black women’s history.

Most notably, Barkley Brown expresses the fear that discussing women’s history exclusively in terms of race reinforces the idea that women of color are “not the norm.” On the other side, Higginbotham (it seems) would appear to celebrate the idea that women of color are not the norm, and indeed are different.

I enjoyed both of these pieces, though I found that at times, both authors attempted to pump a lot of material into a little space. I found the small examples (such as the one with workforce changes) helpful, but the drawn out explanations of race and gender in relation to violence and court cases seems superfluous. They each could have made their argument stronger with shorter examples that stick in the reader’s head without distracting them from the main argument.

On Atha Fong on “Ma Rainey:”

I really enjoyed reading Atha’s article because it showed that students can produce concise and interesting pieces in their class work. I’m particularly impressed by her ability to take a subject most readers will have had no exposure to, and make them familiar and comfortable with it by the end of the piece.

I found that Atha executed certain aspects of her paper very well. Firstly, she uses great sources and cites them well – especially the relevant Higginbotham article! Additionally, she provides great examples to bring Ma Rainey’s music alive. Obviously, when writing about a performing art conveying the power of the message can be difficult. I appreciate that Atha provides a substantive example to contrast Ma Rainey’s serious lyrics with other, more upbeat Blues singers. In fact, all of Atha’s quotes are succinct and effective, adding the quality of the piece rather than distracting.

I like that Atha presented Ma Rainey as a multi-faceted person. Through her references, we could see the sensitive and soulful sides of her, as well as the peppy and extravagant aspects. Atha highlighted not only how poor country blacks accepted her, but also that Harlem intellectuals ostracized her for “holding back” the race. I also liked that Atha titled the subsections of her piece, so the reader understood the focus, and it never felt disjointed.

I found some areas that Atha could improve upon in her introduction. It was nice to hear where she pulled her sources from, but I don’t believe she didn’t need to make a laundry list of authors and their works in the body of her paper. Also, the introduction was a little long and got repetitive before we understood the real argument of her paper.

In general, I loved this piece and think it is a great example for how we can construct our own papers!

Matt Serna's Reading Response

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham's “African American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race” and Elsa Barkley Brown's, “'What Has Happened Here': The Politics of Difference in Women's History and Feminist Politics” both address the necessity of considering race in feminist studies and in women-specific issues, though in very different methods. Higginbotham takes a thematic approach that breaks down different components of womens' lives such as sexuality, gender, and class through the lens of race, while Brown uses the case study of Anita Hill to illustrate the problems that arise when racial issues are displaced by, rather than integrated with gender issues. Atha Fong's paper, “Ma Rainey: Voicing, Shaping, and Challenging Identities by Wielding the Power of Performance,” combines these two approaches in order to discuss the impact of Ma Rainey on shaping cultural perceptions.
One of the biggest strengths of the Higginbotham essay is it's clarity. Higginbotham is very explicit about her motive: to “expose the role of race as a metalanguage by calling attention to its powerful, all-encompassing effect on the construction and representation of other social and power relations, namely, gender, class, and sexuality.” (Signs 252) The paper progress very methodically, first defining race, then explaining its critical relationship to gender, and finally picking apart the aforementioned social relationships of women through the lens of race. Her argument's strength rests on the cumulative build up of multiple different arenas in which race effects social relationships, leading the reader quite easily to the final conclusion that race is an intrinsic part of gender conception.
Critical to Higginbotham's argument is her critique on 'traditional' women's studies; she asserts white feminists fail to “separate their whiteness from their womanness.” and view black women's gender and racial identities as separate entities. More problematic, according to Higginbotham, is the way in which white feminists conclude that non-white women's gender identity is of the same, white variety that they have come to identify within themselves. But by outlining and differentiating society's interactions with white and black women in reference to specific women's issues such as gender and sexuality, she demonstrates the necessity to look at gender issues from a race perspective, and vice versa.
Higginbotham uses historical sources primarily as a way to validate the legitimacy of her contrarian argument, sticking to well known and respected historians such as W. E. B. Dubois and Michel Foucault. This is a necessary strategy when challenging any kind of intellectual status quo – putting one's self in line with the intellectual trajectory of recognized greats legitimizes the argument to potential skeptics.
Brown essentially argues the same thing as Higginbotham, arguing that “we have still to recognize that being a woman is, in fact, not extractable from the context in which one is a woman – that is, race class, time, and place.” (Brown 300) Brown's focus, however, is larger, moving beyond differences in race between women and considering every kind of possible dividing force between women. For Brown, the stakes are high – she writes that the problem of difference “challenges women's history at its core, for it suggests that until women's historians adequately address difference and the causes for it, they have not and can not adequately tell the history of even white middle-class women.” (Brown 301)
She spends a great deal of her paper setting up illustrations to explain how differences between women can help unite themselves, so much that I feel it uncomfortably distances itself from the meat and potatoes of the essay: the case study of Anita Hill. Anita Hill is the crux of her argument, the shining example that both proves her argument and makes it relevant and worthy of consideration. But the Anita Hill analysis gets lost in a sea of set up, analogy, and explanation. I feel like the Brown paper lacks the structural simplicity and elegance of the Higginbotham paper, and for that reason more than any other fails to articulate its argument as clearly. Though it doesn't draw on historical narrative the way that Higginbotham's paper does, I feel like for this style of argument, it isn't as important of an issue. However, in spite of these failings, the Brown essay makes the problem appear relevant in a way that Higginbotham's does not by explaining how this fundamentally intellectual issue can create severe problems in the administration of justice and the interpretation of law.
To me, Atha Fong's paper does a lot right, but it is by no means a perfect paper. Her analysis of Ma Rainey and the impact she had on shaping cultural perceptions of African American women combines the Higginbotham and Brown approaches by synthesizing the clarity of a careful thematic organization with the depth and personality of a case study. Her thesis is quite simple and clearly marked: “Through the widespread reach of her music, Ma Rainey forced black audiences to renegotiate their African American identities in terms of black women's experiences; at the same time, she exposed white audiences to the struggles and trials of black women.” ( Herodotus 18) However, her introduction falls off the tracks after the thesis and reads rather like an annotated bibliography, which is unnecessary, particularly for a personal case study.
I was also confused by her constant reference to a “culture of dissemblance.” The paper hints that Rainey's rebellion against the “culture of dissemblance” was a key part of what defined her contrarian nature, so it would have been nice to know what the “culture of dissemblance” was. Furthermore, I felt like some sections were unnecessary and did not contribute overall to the argument Fong was making. In particular, her section on “Unforgettable Performances and a Position of Influence,” while interesting, says almost nothing that isn't covered in other sections, and while Fong's gift for narrative is undeniable, I feel like unnecessary sections like this harm the argumentative power of the paper. But for me, the biggest intellectual deficiency in the Fong paper is her cursory glance at the huge problem of Ma Rainey perpetuating negative stereotypes about African American women. I feel like this issue is extraordinarily relevant to Fong's argument that Ma Rainey helped break down preconceptions about African American women and was revolutionary in sharing their struggle. This issue clearly deserves much more than a small mention near the closing of the page.
But ultimately, the paper accomplishes what it set out to do. Like with Higginbotham's paper, the organization ultimately carries Fong's paper. The only thing that seriously prevents this paper from being excellent is the excessive emphasis on less than relevant topics and the lack of emphasis on the negative effects Ma Rainey's music had.

Tom Grey's Reading Response

The Higginbotham, Brown and Fong pieces share in common their interest in the historiography of African American women but they all choose to address distinct aspects of this field of study. These documents are all directly relevant to one another, though they attack a similar issue from different perspectives. Higginbotham addresses the issue of race in feminist studies, Brown addresses the underappreciated interrelatedness of black and white racial history, and Fong describes the effect and significance of a key figure in African American women’s history.
Higginbotham, more specifically, takes issue with feminist scholars’ ambivalence toward the distinction between African American women and White Women. In academic discourse regarding the role of women in society, Higginbotham argues, scholars tend to group all women under the canopy of “womanhood” while ignoring the significant power dynamics among women. These power dynamics, however, should not be overlooked because they are imperative to an understanding of the role of African American women in society. Higginbotham spends much of her argument describing the vital role that race plays in American society, detailing its effect upon gender, class, sexuality and national identity. Her conclusion is that Black-White racial relations divide African Americans and Whites across gender lines (“’womanhood’ did not rest on a common female essence, shared culture, or mere physical appearance.”), class lines (“an entire system disregarded…complexities and tensions by grouping all blacks into a normative well of inferiority and subserviency.”), lines of sexuality (“division between black people and white people on the ‘scale of humanity’: carnality as opposed to intellect”) and national lines (“[African Americans] spoke of a collective identity in the colonial terms of a ‘nation within a nation’”).
In justifying these arguments Higginbotham draws upon the work of African American historians ranging from W.E.B. Du Bois to E. Frances White. These sources provide compelling evidence for the unavoidable effect of race upon the female role in society and on this point, Elsa Barkley Brown would be in complete agreement.
Brown, in a similar vein as Higginbotham argues that modern historiography fails to adequately address the interrelation between African American women’s history and White women’s history. Often, she argues, the histories are separated as a means of simplifying and processing the roles of individual groups within society, but by separating these histories the impact that different societal groups have on each other is lost. The example she cites to illustrate this point is the impact of African American women’s role in the home and how their role in the home allowed White women to take on greater responsibilities outside the home. The underlying point of this argument is similar to the underlying argument made by Higginbotham: we cannot study one identity in history in isolation of other identities because in doing so we lose the relevant effect of those other identities. With this point in mind we can analyze Atha Fong’s depiction of Ma Rainey and her effect upon the identity of African American women.
Fong argues that Ma Rainey’s charisma, perceived honesty, and subject choice allowed her to influentially shape African American identity and create a voice for African American women. Fong spends a great portion of her essay describing what it was about Rainey’s musical style that differentiated her from her contemporaries. Fong’s argument depends on her assertion that Rainey was influential because she personally was exemplary and was able to achieve something that no one before her could. In this regard Fong fails to acknowledge a multitude of highly relevant external factors. As Higginbotham and Brown both argue, not only is context relevant, the context is vital to accurately represent the past.

Sylvie Greenberg's response essay

Feminist historians Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and Elsa Barkley Brown are both concerned by the alarming and striking exclusion of the discussion of race in feminist philosophy, theory, and general historical writings. “Womanhood,” argues Barkley Brown, is a homogenous term—and a racist double standard. “Womanhood” alone can denote all white heterosexual women, but one would have to modify it with “black” or “lesbian” in order to consider other races or sexual orientations. Both Higginbotham and Barkley Brown argue that this is because race is inherently tied to gender—and yet it is not included in gender studies because it creates ‘chaos’ in the field. For her part, Higginbotham laments the lack of consideration on the part of new wave feminist theorists in regard to women and their races. She argues that it is necessary for race to finally be included in feminist scholarship, and gives credence to her claim by providing evidence for race being intrinsically interwoven in the subject of gender. Barkley Brown explains why race is so often left out of feminist theory: mainly that feminists are afraid to break apart “womanhood” into groups based on race or sexual orientation for fear of alienating women from each other.

Higginbotham’s argument for the importance of writing on race and gender is bolstered by her claims that gender and race are intrinsically connected. She outlines the connection between gender and the very construction of race, the effect that race has on gender, class, and sexuality, and lastly how race is a dialogic tool for both oppression and liberation. Her essay leaves the reader thinking: how could race have ever been left out of this discussion before?

Elsa Barkley Brown’s piece comments on the discontent of some feminist theorists by the thought of including race in the discussion of women (which answers Higginbotham’s question of why race is so often left out). Barkley Brown argues that feminists are reluctant to pay attention to differences (e.g. racial differences) between women for they are afraid that looking at differences will push women apart rather than draw them together as a community. She says that the fear of creating a vacuum where there was common ground is like pretending there is a linear history (like a piece of linear classical music) rather than a jazz orchestra of overlapping and responsive histories—a “gumbo ya ya” of discourse. Without acknowledging and studying these differences, Barkley Brown says that false norms (such as the attitude that white heterosexual females are the norm, and everyone else is a deviation) proliferate dangerously.

Both Higginbotham and Barkley Brown draw on the work of other feminist historians and theorists to provide evidence for their claim that race is too often overlooked in regard to gender studies. Rather than refute ideas from other historians, they both use sources that they agree with to bolster their arguments. Higginbotham quotes H.L. Gates, James Jones, W.E.B. DuBois, and Dolores Janiewski, among others. Barkley Brown uses, for example, Zora Neal Hurston and Darlene Clark Hine (whose theory of ‘culture of dissemblance ‘ is especially critical to her analysis).

Atha Fong Response

Atha Fong was successful in drawing me in to the mystique and excitement of Ma Rainey, the performer. My favorite parts were when she was describing Ma physically (‘gold-toofed smiles’) and analyzing her song lyrics. She did a very good job outlining her argument and thesis, but by about page 25 I felt her thesis had become restated so many times it was a bit repetitive. I wish she had expanded upon her original thesis a bit more to include venues for further research, or at least asked more questions that could inspire the reader in more directions.

Her ability to synthesize sources was very admirable (and I enjoyed how she explained which sources she would put in concert with one another). Her references to Darlene Clark Hine’s theory put Ma Rainey’s story in context with the pieces by Higginbotham and Barkley Brown, and made Rainey all the most pertinent. Her clear abstract at the beginning of the paper was also a good organizational tool. I did feel that the end of her paper was a bit rushed. Her last point—about Ma’s performances being a double-edged sword sometimes when she preformed for whites and had the effect of both showcasing the hardships for black women and propagating stereotypes by her flashy performance and stark talk of sexuality—seemed like it deserved greater fleshing out. I wish there were a picture of the raucous Ma included—she really captivated my imagination.

Jenni Ockelmann - reading response

The intersection of race and gender is not always a neat, well-defined one, but ignoring it’s definition for simplicity perpetuates oppression and inequality both along racial and gendered lines, as Elsa Barkley Brown and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham argue in their respective essays. The two writers have different arguments and evidence for the problems of ignoring racial lines in analyzing “women’s history”, but they also convey a common message – that the current form of historical analysis and “white” feminism is not universal or appropriate.

Higginbotham argues that race, class and gender are not all-consuming concepts, and the fact that two people of the female gender are both “women” does not necessarily unite them if, for instance, one is a middle class white and the other is a working class black. She cites evidence that black women during and after slavery were not even always considered women, and were especially not considered “ladies”, and introduces Dolores Janiewski’s work as showing that black women were not protected in the workplace with conditions “suitable for ladies.” Black women and white women were entirely different, and thus it is impossible to discuss women’s history when black women dealt with an entirely different history than white women, and in fact were not even always defined as women in the same way. Race and gender do not exist without each other, and implying a homogeneity among all women ignores the many historical differences that black women have faced, and through which black women have defined their own gender differently from white women.

Brown’s key idea is that simply recognizing and even addressing the differences between women is not enough, because the experiences of different races and classes of women are not separate – rather, as she says, “white women live the lives they do in large part because women of color live the ones they do” (298). Their different experiences are influenced and even caused because the other type of experience is happening. She defines history as “asymmetrical” and “nonlinear” and describes how acknowledging differences does not do justice to telling the story of women as a whole, or of any particular subset of women, because it doesn’t present how much the lives of different women affect the lives of other women.

Brown effectively uses the words of Lusiah Teish to give a literal meaning to the phenomenon that she thinks is missing from studies of women’s history – simultaneous story-telling, the “gumbo ya ya” of Teish’s family gatherings. The stories of white middle class women cannot be told alongside the stories of black working class women, but during, through, and because of. This is as important to the history of white women as it is to the history of black women; for example, though it is more common to explain black working class women’s lives as they are affected by white middle class women’s lives, white middle class women’s changing abilities to go outside the home and work voluntary or public-sector jobs was made possible only because black women moved in to take over private sector jobs in areas such as cleaning, food, and personal services. Thus it is impossible to explain one without the other, and they must all be told simultaneously in some way or another. She gives the example of Anita Hill as a situation in which the failure to simultaneously address gender, race, and class, and instead create an image of the “universal woman”, caused the cause of this “universal” woman to fail.

The problem of the “privileged” class of women – white, middle-class, heterosexual women – and the need to always differentiate any type of woman that varies from this norm is another that Brown critiques. These histories cannot be told at the same time if historians and writers continue to have one type of woman as the norm and recognize differences only inasmuch as they create different groups, and not acknowledge how each experience influences the others – that by having white, middle-class, heterosexual women be the norm, any other women – black, Latina, homosexual – cannot be the norm and must be a different or “deviant” type whose experiences are affected by the norm, but not vice-versa.

Both Brown and Higginbotham address the fact that one reason for the failure to create a full history of women that doesn’t just ignore or acknowledge differences but involves them is that feminist writers and historians fear that they will give up the “women’s voice” – in writing, politics, and history – if they focus too much on differences. To be a stronger force, women must unite and leave differences behind to focus on what brings them together – historical oppression, sexual harassment and abuse, etc.

Atha Fong’s essay on blues singer Ma Rainey looked at the influence that Rainey had in the 1920s and beyond in opening avenues of discussion for black and white audiences to address the issues of black women, and blacks in general, as they faced racial, gendered, and class struggles. According to Fong, Rainey’s popularity as a performer, the emotionality of her lyrics, and the intensity of the messages in her songs all led audiences to face and discuss issues that had previously not been brought into public view.

Fong’s thesis about the influence that Ma Rainey had in causing audiences to confront issues such as domestic violence and sexuality seeks to add to the discussion of both blues music and black feminism, making it a compelling topic with many possible sources. Fong mentions many issues that Rainey sang about – abusive relationships, traveling as an independent woman, and sexual freedom – and discusses how they were new and controversial as song lyrics. The essay successfully introduces the various accomplishments of Ma Rainey and addresses her multiple audiences.

Fong adds complexity to her own argument, and to the topic of black feminism in blues music, by pointing out that some black intellectuals may have actually disapproved of her performances and lyrics because they reaffirmed the white stereotype that black women have primitive, sensual, open sexualities. This point – about the contradiction between fighting oppression of black women by being open, honest, and independent about sexuality versus trying to adhere to the white norm of purity and modesty through silence – could have been expanded into an essay of itself, and this essay about Ma Rainey could have benefited through an extended discussion of Rainey’s actual effects on the forward progress of black women.

Hey guys,

My concentration as a History major has been ‘war and revolution.’ As I said in class, one of the most interesting research experiences I had was researching USAF Captain’s actions in Vietnam during the 1950s, and getting a firsthand look at the realities on the ground during that time through his diary.

I think for my paper I want to again look at war through one individual’s eyes, and use his or her experience to interpret and contextualize what the big picture was at the time. Additionally, I have been thinking about our theme this quarter, “identities.” I think it would be interesting to approach my research from this angle, and not only explore what this individual saw, but how they viewed themselves at the time.

Along those lines, I’ve come up with three (very tentative) possible topics.

1) Focus on a minority individual’s experience serving in World War II. Look into things like their internal conflicts, i.e. their love for their country versus the realities of racism at the time, both at home and in the armed forces. Broader themes include the experience of that individual’s family. I was thinking of focusing on the experience of a Hispanic or Native American soldier.

2) Doing the same thing but with a more modern American conflict, such as the Gulf War. Another way I could go is to look not only at their battle experiences, but their experiences in training as well.

3) My final idea is a lot different. I’ve always been interested in the life of Robert S. McNamara, and have wanted do some more research on him because he was such a controversial figure. Specifically I would focus on his experience as Secretary of Defense, while possibly relating it to his earlier formative years as analyst during World War II and his post-war business career.

- Brendan

Response Papers (Alice Hu)

Hi, all,

Below are my responses to this week's readings! Sorry for the monster post.

Higginbotham, “The Metalanguage of Race;” Barkley Brown, “What Has Happened Here”

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and Elsa Barkley Brown both identify a problem inherent in the study of feminism, or women’s study: by focusing so strongly on the experience and voice of a single, under-represented identity group, these studies risk eliding, ignoring, or even losing the differentiations and the disparate identities within that group. Women’s studies lumps all women into a single group that has had “women’s” experiences—regardless of the fact that women come from all different classes, races, ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations. Regardless of their disparate backgrounds, these women are defined solely by their gender, and, in many cases, the only women’s voices that are heard are those of elite or middle class educated white women. The issue that both articles recognize is the “noise” that results from such a frenzy of these different identities, even within a single category.

These authors both seek to address how modern feminist studies deal with this “noise,” and the problems that result from the ways in which modern scholars deal with—or ignore—this “noise.” Higginbotham in some way sets up Barkley Brown’s article, defining the kind of “noise” that occurs within the group of “women,” and examining how scholars have exacerbated problems by alternately trying to address the “noise” or sweep it under the carpet—she deftly incorporates the works of such thinkers as even Bakhtin in laying the foundation for this problem. The primary example of dissonance that Higginbotham addresses is the discrepancy between the experiences of white women and black women: the modern study of feminism or gender in many ways imposes the experience of white women onto black women, assuming a common experience because these groups are both women. But there is no question that black women and white women have had radically different formative experiences, both historically and in the course of each individual’s lifetime. Black women’s studies, it seems, is a completely different discipline from white women’s studies—which has long been the norm. But Higginbotham problematizes that division even further: black women are no more a single united group than women are. Differences in social status fragment black women into even smaller cross-sections, and it is both ignorant and presumptuous to treat black women as a single block with a common experience. Higginbotham ends by calling for a conscious problematization of the studies of groups we take to be minorities or under-represented: in many cases we are in fact eliding their true identities in favor of blanket truths.

Barkley Brown picks up from where Higginbotham left off: she recognizes this “noise” and the dissonance it causes. But Barkley Brown argues that this dissonance has led to such a fragmentation of women’s studies that, for instance, the study of elite white women and poor black women no longer resemble each other in any discernible way at all, leaving “vacuum” spaces in between, and leaving us to assume that we experience society, our lives, and our identities in isolation. Barkley Brown does not wish to eradicate this “noise,” but wishes to incorporate it into our understandings of women’s studies as a whole, or racial studies as a whole. Barkley Brown demonstrates this dissonance largely in generalities: black women in the intercity, in general, find themselves out of work because jobs have moved out of urban centers. White women, in general, tend to follow those jobs and work in the private sector. Clearly Barkley Brown has done research to discover these trends, and clearly she has researched the historiographical trends in women’s studies, but any acknowledgment of that research appears only in her extensive endnotes. Barkley Brown’s conversational tone mirrors the somewhat problematic simile she employs to frame her argument: unlike a structured, formal piece of Classical music, it mimics a jazz piece in its informality and conversational tone. But where good jazz acknowledges that its foundation lies in classical music, Barkley Brown chooses to sideline the traditions of scholarship that preceded her in presenting her discussion of the problem of “noise” in gender studies.

Atha Fong; “Ma Rainey”

Atha Fong writes with two great advantages: a fluid prose style and a clear understanding of the corpus of Ma Rainey’s work. Both of these allow her to craft an argument that is easy to follow and well-substantiated by examples from Rainey’s life and works. In her introduction, Fong offers a meticulous and extremely helpful but possibly pedantic prospectus of her argument and its structure, even going so far as to outright explain, “this paper is also in conversation with the more general analyses of race and gender in Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s ‘African American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race’ and Darlene Clark Hine’s ‘Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West’.” But other than a brief summary sentence of Higginbotham’s and Hine’s discussion immediately afterward, Fong makes little overt reference to these articles’ more theoretical analyses.

That being said, Fong offers a very cogent discussion of Ma Rainey’s success, and the reasons for and factors in her success—she discusses the traditions of Rainey’s predecessors and the contemporary context that allowed Rainey to come to the limelight. This paper is a case study, and a very successful case study, but it is not the kind of theoretical analysis that Fong hints in the beginning that it might be.

But this case study, detailed and well-researched though it is, verges on panegyric. Fong reinforces with extremely thorough and vividly descriptive detail the ways in which Rainey was successful, talented, and popular, and the reasons for her success and popularity. But it is only as an afterthought that she acknowledges that Rainey may have in fact served to reinforce racial stereotypes—which is a question that lurks in the back of the reader’s mind for a long time before Fong tangentially and dismissively addresses it.

Research Topics - Jenni

I'm still not really sure exactly what I want to focus on for my research paper, but I know I am most interested in women's issues, probably between the 1850s-1930s (I know, it's a pretty wide-open time frame). After some research, I have a few general ideas:

1) The spread of the ideas of birth control in the South in the 1860s-1870s - how birth control methods spread (word of mouth, pamphlets)

2) An exploration of sexuality of the 1920s flappers - what influenced it? (lack of suitors because of the large amount of deaths of men their age in WWI?) Were they as promiscuous as their parents and later generations believe - was it mostly about image and fun? How big of a factor was sex? And did they pave the way for future generations of sexually open women? My big question here is, how did girls who were flappers in their late teens and early twenties lead to the image of the perfect, chaste housewife of the 40s and 50s? Was it a backlash to this openness, or did they calm down? (This one clearly needs a lot of work and definition - these are all just questions I have at this point, and I think I need to pick one).

3) Sexuality of the antebellum Southern Belle - how realistic? Think: Scarlett O'Hara - she was married three times, clearly had sexual experience, and used her sexuality openly. Was this purely cinematic drama, or did it have a basis in truth? Was expression of female sexuality at all accepted in the white Southern upper class?

Research paper topic thoughts (Alice Hu)

So here are a few general ideas about research to pursue. I'm very interested in warfare and violence and particularly how violence has evolved in the modern era and how the sphere of warfare coexists alongside the civilian sphere.

-(here's my pick of the three...) I want to examine the nature of/rhetoric underlying violence in the American Civil War and compare it to the nature of/rhetoric underlying violence in putting down labor strikes in the era immediately after the Civil War--it seems like these are particularly striking instances in which Americans were fighting Americans. Who, for instance, was fighting? Was there any overlap of people who had fought in the Civil War and gone on to be Pinkertons? In what kinds of terms did they couch their violence/struggles? How did they view their opponents? How did race and class factor in?

-(also related to violence...) The transition to "total war" (ie idealogically motivated war that exceeds the bound of the military sphere) is something I find particularly interesting. In Europe some argue that this transition occurred during the Napoleonic Wars. When did this happen in the US? How were wars between white Europeans (the Revolutionary War, for instance, and some battles in the French and Indian Wars and the War of 1812) different in character from wars whose terms were couched in race (Jackson's battles with the Creek Native Americans, Sherman's March to the Sea, the "taming of the West")?

-Speaking of Sherman's March to the Sea, I'm pretty interested in this in general. I'm not sure if this technically counts as a "separate" research topic, but I might like to use this as a case study of "total war" in an American context--America is very obviously a different environment than Europe, and it stands to reason that America, without the same long-standing territorial, religious, and ethnic divisions as Europe has (which is not to say that America does not have its own divisions of these sorts), would be a very different environment in which to wage total war.

Thoughts....? Thanks!

Research Ideas - Matt Serna

Here are a few directions I might go in. I know it's really broad, but I definitely plan on honing in on something more precise once I do a bit of research:

1. Political identity as a function of race or class identity: how do racial/class/social backgrounds or communities influence political identity. Can political identity be considered a part of a racial/class identity? How do certain individuals reconcile seemingly contrary political and social identities (ex. Gay Republicans) ?

2. Revolutionary War Propaganda: To what extent was British oppression fabricated or exaggerated by American revolutionaries, who was behind revolutionary war propaganda, and why? What methods were used, why were they effective?

3. Religion in post revolutionary America: did the unique government/social structure of post revolutionary America through the early 19th century shape the religious character of Americans?

Research Ideas -- Tom

Hey Everyone,

I definitely have nothing concrete that I want to start working with but I wrote a paper for a 20th c. American Politics class that I feel like I never really executed like I should have. So my paper topics stem are a breakdown of different ways I wanted to write that paper:

1. A look at how urban ethnic identities changed during the Great Depression.

2. The evolution of the American frontier and how the idea of a "pioneer" has changed over time.

3. A comparison of presidents perceived to be from the frontier (Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan...others?).

Any thoughts?

-Tom

Research Paper Topics - Sylvie

Hi all,

Here are my general research ideas. U.S. History is my concentration, and-- surprise!-- I plan to write my thesis on a topic in U.S. History. I have not narrowed down what I am interested in writing a thesis on, but I'm hoping after the writing of a 25-page paper on a topic in US History, I will be able to start the harrowing narrowing.

I am interested in the development of the modern conservative movement in the United States, godfathered by the recently deceased William F. Buckley, Jr. (or "Pup" as he was called by his son Christopher, whom maybe some of you may know from his writing on Tina Brown's "The Daily Beast". Christopher Buckley, who wrote "Thank You for Smoking," among other political satires, has been in the news most recently for the small uproar he caused after endorsing Obama and subsequently being fired by The National Review, the conservative magazine his father founded).

Besides Buckley, I am also very interested in writing and reading about religion in America. I took a great class on Religion in America last year from Jonathan Herzog, and I think that writing about conservatism and religion in a more general sense (with or without Buckley) might be good too.

My ideas for paper topics so far are:

1. How Buckley's ideas and political philosophy has shaped California's politics; or: His rearing of Reagan

2. The conservative movement and changes in the (idea of the) American family in the 20th and 21st centuries. Another direction this could go would be something about the RNC & Michael Steele + race in general in the conservative movement. This could also turn into something about religion/race if I were to write about Yes on Prop 8 movements led by churches in California, broken down by both denomination and race make-up.

3. Buckley, the Catholic. -- how Buckley's Catholicism meshed (or didn't) with the Protestant conservative base (and the Evangelical base). How are the National Review crowd and Fundamentalist Christians reconciled or connected? Are they mutually exclusive, or all part of the same movement?

Thanks for your input!

Sylvie

Welcome!

Dear students,

Welcome to the blog for American Identities: Research Seminar for Majors. Please use this as a space to reflect on your writing process. Each week, we will begin our seminar with your posts.