Black Normativity and Burdened Individualism

The Walt Disney Company has a marred past; the products that powered its explosive growth to an entertainment conglomerate depicted grossly racist stereotypes. Seeking to wash its hands of this controversial past, Disney released The Princess and the Frog (TPF), its first film featuring a Black protagonist. The film deserves recognition for its efforts to bring representation to Black Americans. But lurking in Disney’s redemption project is a noticeable revisionist whitewashing of American history. The film’s plot begins when Tiana, short on money and seeking to rescue her incipient dream to open a restaurant, accepts a prince-transmuted-frog’s offer to reward her for kissing him. When she compromises her unyielding adherence to “hard work,” she transforms into a frog. The film’s very narrative structure is built on what Saidiya Hartman labels “burdened individualism,” a discourse that demands Black Americans ceaselessly pursue market ascendency while stripping them of the tools to do so.

Spiritual Significances of Vodoun as Demonstrated in Stout's 'Recurring Damballah Dream'

In this art exhibition paper, I work to demonstrate a more accurate examination of Vodoun culture and values than is often portrayed in mainstream American media. I use Reneé Stout’s lithographic print Recurring Damballah Dream as a lens through which to analyze emblems of Vodoun culture, specifically within practices in Haiti and Louisiana, demonstrating the complexity and significance of Vodoun as a healing culture. Using Disney’s The Princess and The Frog as a misconstrued American representation of Vodoun, I attempt to characterize the ways in which Vodoun is belittled and demonized within colonial frameworks, projecting racial discrimination onto its practitioners.

How China's Response to the Suez Canal Crisis Helped Shape Sino-Egyptian Relations

Gamal Abdel Nasser used his strong response to the 1956 Suez Canal crisis to elevate his political position within Egypt. However, Nasser and Egypt did not respond to European and Israeli aggression alone. World-wide political pressure caused the Suez Canal Crisis to serve as a turning point where French and British global dominance were surpassed by that of the United States and the Soviet Union. However, China also played a substantial role in aiding Egypt. In a recognition of Egypt’s analogical circumstances of ideological struggle versus imperial powers and out of a desire to establish stronger relations in the area, China used their state response to build stronger connections with both Nasser and Egypt. As a result of the Chinese response to the Suez Canal Crisis, the foundations were laid for more positive Chinese-Egyptian relations for the next several decades.

The “Gec-Effect"

My article seeks to track the queer relations to genre initiated by contemporary hyperpop artists like 100 gecs and SOPHIE. Hyperpop is a genre of pop music recently minted in the Summer of 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. My investigation of 100 gecs’ album, 1000 gecs and The Tree of Clues is a cross-disciplinary exercise in queer theory, gender studies, musicology, art history, and philosophy. The article primarily contributes to queer theory discourses on genre, gender, art, and the body. The article concludes with a meditation on “gec feminism,” articulating a critique of academic “standards” of writing and what kind of texts constitute “legitimate” objects of inquiry.

“The Girl Had a Shadow”

In this research paper, I examine how Jordan Peele’s film Us (2019) fits into the genre of a modern “Black Gothic.” I analyze how Peele uses imagery, character construction, and social references to construct a modern Black Gothic film that considers the intense history of oppression and silencing of groups on the basis of their race and class in the United States. I use the foundational definitions and examples provided by Maisha Wester and Sheri-Marie Harrison to argue how Us fits into and further modernizes the Black Gothic genre, as well as examining how Peele’s imagery contributes to the horror and the social commentary of the film. Ultimately, this paper provides a close reading of the whole film as a part of a larger conversation around how the historical and modern oppression of Black individuals and communities is embedded into the very foundation of the United States as a nation.