The study critically investigated the concept of ―Double Consciousness‖ in selected African-American autobiographies. In view of the latter, W.E.B. Du Bois defined double consciousness as a condition of being both black and American which he perceived as the reason black people were/are being discriminated in America. The study demonstrated that creative works such as Harriet Jacobs‘ Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl: Told by Herself, Frederick Douglass‘ The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois‘ The Souls of Black Folk, Booker T. Washington‘s Up from Slavery, Langston Hughes‘ The Big Sea, Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks on a Road, Malcolm X‘s The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Maya Angelou‘s All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes, Cornel West‘s Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud and bell hooks‘ Bone Black affirm double consciousness as well as critiqued the concept, revealing new layers of identities and contested sites of struggle in African-American society. The study used a qualitative method to analyse and argue that there are ideological shifts that manifest in the creative representation of the idea of double consciousness since slavery. Some relevant critical voices were used to support, complicate and question the notion of double consciousness as represented in selected autobiographies. The study argued that there are many identities in the African-American communities which need attention equal to that of race. The study further argued that double consciousness has been modified and by virtue of this, authors suggested multiple forms of consciousness. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

Abstract During the last decade many female writers of British decent have focused on identity construction and coming of age. These writers have been especially interested in exploring how people living in the diaspora are trying to cope with their ambivalent feelings towards their mixed cultural heritage. Helen Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl is one of these novels. The novel depicts a young girl's struggle with the dualism within her, being both British and Nigerian, that threatens to dissolve her self-identity. This essay will explore how The Icarus Girl deals with the theme “double consciousness” (imposed binaries) and how the narrative's structure and stylistic devices enable the story to be read (interpreted) from two different perspectives, thus the narrative's structure offers an ambiguous double reading that corresponds to Jessamy's unresolved doubleness. The first reading suggests that the traumatic experience of “double consciousness“ is left in a status quo, or even being fatal, which in the essay is called the Western reading. The second reading suggests a recovery, i.e. that the young protagonist comes to terms with her mixed cultural heritage, the so-called West-African reading. In pursuing this aim I discuss how “double consciousness” in this novel is a traumatic state of mind transferred from mother to daughter, but also how stylistic devices, belonging to the genre of the fantastic, are used to emphasize the theme and make possible the two different readings.

In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W.E.B. Du Bois theorized that black peoples were viewed behind a metaphorical “veil” that consisted of three interrelated aspects: the skin as an indication of African Americans’ difference from their white counterparts, white people’s lack of capacity to see African Americans as Americans, and African Americans’ lack of capacity to see themselves outside of the labels white America has given them. This, according to Du Bois, resulted in the gift and curse of “double consciousness,” the feeling that one’s identity is divided. As African Americans fought for socio-political equality, the reconciliation of these halves became essential in creating a new identity in America by creating a distinct voice in the age of modernity. Intellectuals and artists of the Harlem Renaissance began to create new art forms with progressive messages that strove to uplift the race and ultimately lift the veil. William Grant Still (1895–1978), an American composer of African descent, accomplished this goal in his opera Blue Steel (1934) by changing how blackness—defined here as characteristics attributed to and intended to indicate the otherness of people of African or African-American descent—was portrayed on the operatic stage. Still exemplifies what Houston A. Baker called “mastery of form” by presenting double consciousness in the interactions of three characters, Blue Steel, Venable, and Neola, in order to offer a new and complex reading of blackness.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:17:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruno Simoes Goncalves.pdf: 1489853 bytes, checksum: e3349f2df55540a9fe6d05dfb91010f1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-10-24 / The purpose of this essay is to investigate the existing tension between the tradition and the modernity within the caipira way of life, by using two basic and complementary methods: the bibliographic research and the field research. The theoretical basis is built on an approximation between the reflection on Brazilian modernity, by the sociologist José de Souza Martins, and the phenomenology of the imagination, by Gaston Bachelard. The field research took place in São Luís do Paraitinga and resulted in the conduction, transcription and analysis of four interviews, all included in this work. The choice of the research subjects, the issues of the interviews and the eventual use of those accounts have been based in the fundamentals of Oral History. The modern Brazilian consciousness is like a path in between two boundaries. Our double consciousness, divided between the modern and the traditional, results on the conjugation of the different life styles which got together to form our own identity. The modern Brazilian consciousness takes place in a game of power in which are summed up customs and values, that are rationalized and urbanocentrics , with the tribality and the rural magic universe. Logic and Poetic Imagination are seen here as symbols of these two distinct ways of being together with reality. This essay is an effort to reach the understanding of the fundamental dynamics existing within our culture, revealed through the subjectivity and the daily caipira style of living, as well as, to perceive how these dimensions are related basing on the so called great lines of History . Built in a direct interaction with some of the residents of São Luís do Paraitinga, these reflections are a way to not only built a brief critical analysis of reality but also to register words and gestures of the ones who, historically, had their voices silenced the women and men from the countryside / A presente dissertação tem como objetivo principal investigar a tensão existente entre tradição e modernidade no interior do modo de vida caipira, a partir de dois pilares básicos e complementares: a pesquisa bibliográfica e a pesquisa de campo. O aporte teórico teve como principal fundamento uma aproximação entre a reflexão sobre a modernidade brasileira feita pelo sociólogo José de Souza Martins e a fenomenologia da imaginação de Gaston Bachelard. Já a pesquisa de campo se desenvolveu no município vale-paraibano de São Luís do Paraitinga e resultou na realização, transcrição e análise de quatro entrevistas, todas incluídas nesta dissertação. A escolha dos sujeitos, as temáticas abordadas nesses encontros e o posterior manuseio das narrativas tiveram como base metodológica os fundamentos da História Oral. A consciência moderna brasileira é uma travessia entre duas margens. Dividida entre o moderno e o tradicional, nossa dupla consciência é uma reunião dos diferentes modos de vida que se mesclaram na formação de nossa identidade. Sobrepondo costumes e valores urbanocêntricos e racionalizados à tribalidade e ao universo rural e mágico que também a constituem, a consciência moderna brasileira se realiza nesse jogo de forças. Razão e imaginação poética aparecem então como símbolos desses dois modos distintos de estar junto à realidade. Esta pesquisa expressa a busca de um início de compreensão sobre como essa dinâmica fundamental de nossa cultura se revela na subjetividade e na vida cotidiana do caipira e como estas dimensões se relacionam na discussão das chamadas grandes linhas da História . Produzida em meio a um convívio direto com o município de São Luís do Paraitinga e parte de seus moradores, o conjunto de reflexões que compõem esta dissertação buscou não só tecer uma breve análise crítica da realidade pesquisada como também deixar registradas palavras e gestos daqueles que, historicamente, têm sua voz silenciada as mulheres e os homens do campo

This thesis presents an argument for the use of dialogic halaqah to develop the personal autonomy of young Muslims in twenty-first century Britain. It begins by developing a theoretical grounding for Islamic conceptualisations of personal autonomy and dialogic pedagogy. In doing so, it aims to generate dialogue between Islamic and ‘western’ educational traditions, and to clarify the theoretical foundation of halaqah, a traditional Islamic oral pedagogy, that has been adapted to meet the educational needs of Muslim children in contemporary Britain. Dialogic halaqah is daily practice in two independent British Muslim faith-schools, providing a safe space for young Muslims to cumulatively explore challenging issues, in order to facilitate the development of selfhood, hybrid identity and personal autonomy, theorised as shakhsiyah Islamiyah. This thesis examines the relationship between thought, language, and the development of personal autonomy in neo-Ghazalian, Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions, and suggests the possibility of understanding shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self. This theoretical work underpins an empirical study of data generated through dialogic halaqah held with groups of schoolchildren and young people. Using established analytic schemes, data from these sessions are subjected to both thematic and dialogue analyses. Emergent themes relating to autonomy and choice, independent and critical thinking, navigating authority, peer pressure, and choosing to be Muslim are explored. Themes related to halaqah as dialogic pedagogy, whether and how it supports the development of agency, resilience and independent thinking, and teacher and learner roles in halaqah, are examined. Moreover, findings from dialogue analysis, which evaluates the quality of educational dialogue generated within halaqah, that is, participants’ capacity to engage in dialogue with each other, as well as with an imagined secular other, are presented. The quality of the dialogic interactions is evaluated, as is evidence of individual participant’s autonomy in their communicative actions.

This dissertation study was conducted in order to examine and gain an insight on two topics that are considered to be highly under researched: American historically black fraternities and sororities and colorism within the back American community. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact that colorism has had on black American collegiate Greek letter organizations. Using the qualitative phenomenological approach, 18 graduate or alumni members, two from each of the nine historically black Greek letter organizations that make up the National Pan-Hellanic Council were interviewed using open ended questions to see what impact (if any) colorism has had on historically black fraternities and sororities. During the interviews the following five major themes emerged: discriminatory practices between black Americans, stereotyping black Greek letter organizations, stereotyping skin tones, colorism as a part of American history, and colorism as being permanently a part of the black American community. The following theories were also explored during the study: Social Identity Theory, Double Consciousness, Primary Identification Theory, and Conflict Caused by Colorism, to further see what impact colorism had on historically black fraternities and sororities. Through these five themes and theories, it was found that colorism has had and continues to have a significant impact on not only members of historically black fraternities and sororities, but also that of members of the black American community as a whole.

The aim of this thesis is two-fold. Firstly, the aim is to analyze the three aspects institutional racism, double-consciousness and importance of minoritized voices in Angie Thomas’ novel The Hate U Give in connection to the thesis’ theoretical framework, Critical Race Theory. Secondly, the aim is also to argue for the inclusion of The Hate U Give in the Swedish EFL classroom, by investigating potential pedagogical implications in connection to the literary analysis and the thesis’ pedagogical framework, Critical Race Pedagogy. Potentially as a way of hoping for social justice and change for a minoritized group of people, the literary analysis of the three aspects demonstrates that Thomas depicts racial inequality as natural and fixed within many layers of American society such as economic opportunities, law enforcement, education, identities and which voices are heard vs. ignored. Therefore, this thesis argues that Thomas’ counter narrative The Hate U Give, with its portrayal of the racially inequal American society and the effects on the African American characters, could serve as a point of departure for discussions of institutional racism, double-consciousness and the importance of minoritized voices in the Swedish EFL classroom, to raise awareness of the situation for a minoritized group of people in America and connect it to the students’ own experiences and knowledge of these aspects.