The readings about symbolism, more particularly personification of such things as liberty or America in female figures, open up so many avenues of thought. We'll move along one road toward Virginia, Pocahontas, Disney and the like. Here I want to point in another. Michelle Norris, of NPR fame, has written a book about her family that includes her grandmother's employment as a representative of Aunt Jemimah pancake mix. Representative in italics because she was both selling the stuff by demonstrating it and dressed up as the fictional Aunt Jemimah. I point toward Norris' treatment of her grandmother's experience because it is so nuanced and attentive to the ambiguities. Like Deloria in the excerpt we read from Playing Indian, Norris probes the multiple meanings and the power of "disguise." Moreover, in doing so she touches upon the matter of agency in a way that reminds me of our discussion of Anne Hutchinson. Finally, her project is a fine example of the effort to make constructive use of one's past, in this case of her family's past in the context of the larger American culture. I plan to read the book and consider using it in 202.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Personfications, Symbols, Silence
The Grace of Silence: Review in Ms Magazine via Powell's Books
"Piecing together the Aunt Jemima period of her grandmother's life, Norris juxtaposes her uncle's pride in his mother's small-town fame -- "She put that costume on and she was a star" -- with her mother's shame at the humiliating image and Norris' own disbelief, ambivalence and fascination. She also cleverly critiques the historical symbolism of the iconic pancake-wielding "mammy" character, from Aunt Jemima's debut at the 1893 World's Fair in the form of a large and gregarious former slave to the 1994 ad campaign starring Gladys Knight. "
The readings about symbolism, more particularly personification of such things as liberty or America in female figures, open up so many avenues of thought. We'll move along one road toward Virginia, Pocahontas, Disney and the like. Here I want to point in another. Michelle Norris, of NPR fame, has written a book about her family that includes her grandmother's employment as a representative of Aunt Jemimah pancake mix. Representative in italics because she was both selling the stuff by demonstrating it and dressed up as the fictional Aunt Jemimah. I point toward Norris' treatment of her grandmother's experience because it is so nuanced and attentive to the ambiguities. Like Deloria in the excerpt we read from Playing Indian, Norris probes the multiple meanings and the power of "disguise." Moreover, in doing so she touches upon the matter of agency in a way that reminds me of our discussion of Anne Hutchinson. Finally, her project is a fine example of the effort to make constructive use of one's past, in this case of her family's past in the context of the larger American culture. I plan to read the book and consider using it in 202.
The readings about symbolism, more particularly personification of such things as liberty or America in female figures, open up so many avenues of thought. We'll move along one road toward Virginia, Pocahontas, Disney and the like. Here I want to point in another. Michelle Norris, of NPR fame, has written a book about her family that includes her grandmother's employment as a representative of Aunt Jemimah pancake mix. Representative in italics because she was both selling the stuff by demonstrating it and dressed up as the fictional Aunt Jemimah. I point toward Norris' treatment of her grandmother's experience because it is so nuanced and attentive to the ambiguities. Like Deloria in the excerpt we read from Playing Indian, Norris probes the multiple meanings and the power of "disguise." Moreover, in doing so she touches upon the matter of agency in a way that reminds me of our discussion of Anne Hutchinson. Finally, her project is a fine example of the effort to make constructive use of one's past, in this case of her family's past in the context of the larger American culture. I plan to read the book and consider using it in 202.
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