Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham opens
her article, African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race,
by stating that the theoretical discussion “begs for greater voice.” In the
course of her piece, Higginbotham brings in many voices, from literary critics,
linguists, and black feminist writers to chromosome researchers. These interdisciplinary
sources serve to support a thesis with enormous scope. Higginbotham’s argument not
only seeks to addresses historical truths, but to reexamine how history is studied
and perceived. Race, class and gender, she maintains, cannot be studied in
mutual isolation. To ignore the “relations of power between social categories by
which individuals are identified and identify themselves” would be to reduce fluid,
interdependent structures to monoliths (253).
In large part, Higginbotham’s thesis
is a reaction to prior trends. As such, it necessitates some critique of earlier
writers—in this case, white feminists who assume the gender identity of black
women is essentially the same as their own (255). To counter this view, Higginbotham
draws from history, citing double standards for female behavior and social
mores based on race (261). While these illustrative examples bolster her point,
Higginbotham relies more heavily on ideas and direct quotes from other
theorists. These scholars, working in a variety of fields from sociology to linguistics,
enhance the authority of Higginbotham’s piece. Their relevance across the disciplines
suggests the far-reaching implications of her thesis, and its potential
application to fields beyond history. She draws from the Russian critic and
linguist Bakhtin, for instance, to flesh out the linguistic dimensions of her argument
surrounding “the metalanguage of race.” According to Bakhtin, discourse can be “doubled-voiced”
(267). Higginbotham extends this idea to the language of race, which holds the
potential to serve “the voice of black oppression and the voice of black
liberation” (267).
Given the amount of ground she
covers, Higginbotham’s essay is remarkably concise. It stands on a broad foundation
of reference to other thinkers. While a conventional history article would
rarely demand this level of engagement with other scholars, Higginbotham’s point
centers around scholarship itself—namely, how systems of race, class and
sexuality “give form and content to the particular women we are” (273).
Jennifer Ockelmann’s paper, “Don’t
Fuss, Mother, This Isn’t So Fast,” explores the push and pull between modernity
and modesty in advertising and popular media of the 1920s. Even on the silver
screen, Ockelmann writes, female characters toed the margins of acceptability. Images
of the “modern woman” were in flux, but the general trend was a gradual
abandonment of restrictive social mores.
Ockelmann’s argument rests
heavily on the analysis of primary sources—advertisements for feminine hygiene
products, representations of women in film, and a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
She draws ideas from a few scholars, such as historian Joshua Zeitz, yet her
engagement with the literature on the topic is limited—it seems Ockelmann
watched the films and mostly formed her own conclusions. While these
conclusions are sound, they also seemed a bit too obvious. The 1920s were
clearly a time of great social change, and change is always accompanied by tension
and struggle. Ockelmann might have benefitted from a more daring claim. As it
is, there is not much point in quoting or conveying the views of film scholars
and historians, as no one would argue against Ockelmann’s uncontroversial
thesis.
Overall, “Don’t Fuss, Mother,
This Isn’t So Fast” is well-written and entertaining. The inclusion of sanitary
napkins and their marketing as evidence was novel, and I was intrigued by Ockelmann’s
unconventional source materials. Yet there seemed to be a missing piece. Whereas
Higginbotham makes a bold case for the sweeping relevance of her critique, Ockelmann
makes little effort to defend the significance of the social pattern she
describes. It may be unfair to compare these two articles—one written by a prominent
professor, the other by a student—but I believe the point stands. A thesis can’t
advocate for itself.
In
“Critical of Compromise: Henry McNeal Turner and the Rise of the Emigration
Movement in Post-Civil War America,” Bianca Dang uses one man’s story to trace
a larger trend of hope and disillusion among African-Americans in the wake of
the Civil War. Her focus on Turner allows her to track ideological development
over a period of time without losing specificity, and the roadmap at the outset
sets the reader’s expectations for the structure and flow of the paper to come.
Dang’s thesis is that the Civil War failed to bring about any meaningful
equality or change, leading a frustrated Turner to endorse emigrationism. Yet more than an
argument, Dang seems to be constructing a narrative, following an individual
and the movement he came to believe in.
Dang brings in outside scholars
mainly for historical context, explaining legislation or backing up her claims
about larger political trends. Most of the direct quotes in the paper are from
Turner himself—an effective device, given that this individual is at the heart of
Dang’s argument, though her analysis of these quotes is redundant at times. As
in Ockelmann’s paper, I was sometimes unclear on the significance of a
particular passage or piece of evidence. Given that Dang is telling Turner’s
story chronologically, there is a danger of recounting what he said and
(presumably) thought without elaborating on the relevance of those views to the
topic at large.
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