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167
son, she reasserts her own power. She says, “For a birthday present when
he was three/ I gave my son hannibal an elephant/ He gave me rome for
mother’s day/ My strength flows ever on.” Even the military prowess of
Hannibal and his ability to sack Rome is secondary to his mother’s
strength. The poem reaches a peak in the fifth stanza when Giovanni
writes, “I turned myself into myself and was/ jesus/ men intone my loving
name/ All praises All praises/ I am the one who would save.” The divinity
hinted at in earlier stanzas is now explicit. The female speaker’s gender is
now called into question, as we know Jesus to have been male. Perhaps
more intriguingly, she calls into question the gender of Jesus who, it
seems, is an incarnation of a female goddess. Men, who have created a
male god in their own image, “invoke [her] loving name,” without
recognizing the female source of their god. Finally, the short last stanzas
reinforce the super-natural qualities inherent in the black female speaker:
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission
I mean . . . I . . . can fly
like a bird in the sky . . .
The image the reader is left with is of a strong, divine, powerful
female who is in control of the world and of her own image. She is neither
Object Description
| Title | "As shelters against the cold": women writers of the Black Arts and Chicano movements, 1965-1978 |
| Author | Ryder, Ulli Kira |
| Author email | uryder@usc.edu; uryder@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | American Studies & Ethnicity |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-27 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Restricted until 27 October 2010. |
| Date published | 2010-10-27 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | McKenna, Teresa |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Sanchez, George J. Johnson, Dana |
| Abstract | This dissertation examines the work of women writers in the Black Arts and Chicano movements during the years 1965-1978. I argue that understanding the intersectional nature of the women's experiences is crucial for understanding their literary output. Further, I argue that Chicanas and African American women of this era challenged homogenous notions of community and racial identity and that we can trace the development of the Third World feminism and multiculturalism that came to the fore in the 1980s to this earlier period. Thus, this study also impacts the way we conceptualize identity formation and the creation of the literary canon. Investigating the ways in which these women integrated nationalist and feminist rhetoric and activism in their work is crucial for a full understanding of this critical period in U.S. history. At stake is an understanding of how Chicana and African American women in the United States have formed identities and communities; struggled for liberation and equality; and become part of the U.S. literary canon. |
| Keyword | Black Power; Black Arts movement; Chicano movement; civil rights; racial identity formation; womanism; borderlands theory; feminism; Third World feminism; nationalism; intersectionality |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA |
| Coverage date | 1965/1978 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1698 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Ryder, Ulli Kira |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Ryder-2415 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume40/etd-Ryder-2415.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 172 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 167 son, she reasserts her own power. She says, “For a birthday present when he was three/ I gave my son hannibal an elephant/ He gave me rome for mother’s day/ My strength flows ever on.” Even the military prowess of Hannibal and his ability to sack Rome is secondary to his mother’s strength. The poem reaches a peak in the fifth stanza when Giovanni writes, “I turned myself into myself and was/ jesus/ men intone my loving name/ All praises All praises/ I am the one who would save.” The divinity hinted at in earlier stanzas is now explicit. The female speaker’s gender is now called into question, as we know Jesus to have been male. Perhaps more intriguingly, she calls into question the gender of Jesus who, it seems, is an incarnation of a female goddess. Men, who have created a male god in their own image, “invoke [her] loving name,” without recognizing the female source of their god. Finally, the short last stanzas reinforce the super-natural qualities inherent in the black female speaker: I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission I mean . . . I . . . can fly like a bird in the sky . . . The image the reader is left with is of a strong, divine, powerful female who is in control of the world and of her own image. She is neither |
