Rationale and Content Objectives
In our present moment, image and narrative are sites of struggle. Organizing reality, meaning-making, and history will be one of the greatest and necessary tasks that our transitioning society will have to undertake in order to make the world a better place. It is now commonplace for young people to challenge the violence that is held secret in museums, to become curious about the origins of language, and to center marginalized voices in everyday conversations and burgeoning, “radical” political projects. The call for representation in common media reflects a generation that dreams for a more inclusive society, but has since recoiled against formulaic taxonomies that have been leveraged by their conservative detractors. In order to include the marginalized in a way that is equitable and fair, it is assumed that the artist-narrator must flatten the character’s social identities and tendencies, cut out and mitigate social faux pas when these identities are in conflict. Characters must meet the norms of liberal “language idealism”.
In modern media, it is easy to tangent a character’s racial and sexual world, voyeur their mental hurdles, and come to a relative understanding of what the adverse circumstances that a character is navigating. The metamodernist narrative device that has proliferated over the past decade, seems to have been a strong diversion against “liberal” trope and audiences are moving beyond the pastiche of “enlightened inconclusiveness” and generative ambiguity that post-modern media had provided before. In short, people are looking for honest and real resolution, even if it is relatively unleveled or “rough around the edges”.
While metamodernism has helped us to recognize our present-day, working-class protagonist, much has been left to be desired with understanding and embodying the reality of the past of the subaltern, the slave, and the Native steward, beyond living as distant, historical objects. The task of this curriculum unit is to hold space for the drama of the narrative while allowing my students to build relationships with the characters who are centered in the stories while avoiding the narcissism of character study. The task of the curriculum is not against identity politics, it is against identity resulting in narrative reductionism, and I am hoping that through serious intellectual study and personal reflection, students will be able to grapple against the reality of an American society that is self-aware but hypocritical enough to recognize that we are not in a “post-racial” society while modern media does everything in its power to “hide the bones” found in white supremacist narrative superstructure. In short, I want to channel “intersectional” theory and colonial discourse theory in order to inspire students’ critical thinking about American culture, history and identity.
In this unit, I am going to explore how settler-colonial ideas created the landscape of difference and conflict in Shakespeare’s play Othello (c.1603) and the novel There, There by Tommy Orange (2018). Settler colonial ideas deform the humanity of the characters in the play; however, these deformities will not be the only point of contact with characters in these works. It is important that my students understand how colonization is the background for not only the characters, but for the characters’ actions, choices and decisions that they eventually make. While these works of literature are situated by different time periods, settings and artistic styles, they are conjoined by Christopher Columbus’ violent colonization of the Americas. That act of colonization is the genesis of the logic of difference and otherization that is commonplace (and still largely unconscious) in our social discourse and interpersonal relationships. I am hoping that with this historical foregrounding, students will be encouraged to be more reflective in how colonization impacts their relationship to the environment and their “media diet”, and to become more critical of what can subtract their own inherent humanity. This unit will be divided into two parts: past and present.
Past: Othello and Paired Works of Art
In the “past” section, the classroom will examine the play Othello (c.1603) by William Shakespeare. The paintings used in order to supplement the learning environment will be The Miracle of the Relic of the True Cross on the Rialto Bridge by Vittore Carpaccio (c.1496), Altarpiece with St. James in the central panel from the Chapel of the Alcazar of Segovia (c.15th century) and The Return of Othello, ‘Othello,’ Act II, Scene II by Thomas Stothard (c.1799).
Miracle of the Relic
Guiding Questions: How does the visual language of the painting highlight the people who are respectable or of high status in Venetian society? Which people look out of place or could be considered “outsiders”? What is the main element that creates community in this painting? What do you think is the main element that creates community in the city of Philadelphia?
The overall goal for the Miracle of the Relic is for students to make connections between the public life in Venice (the setting of Othello) and the public life of contemporary Philadelphia, noting similarities and differences. Furthermore, I want my students to have a deeper understanding of the social identities present in the painting, in order to start thinking critically about what creates social life. These paintings are particularly relevant as there are many public and underground” bazaars” in Philadelphia—whether it is at the canals of the 15th Street Market-Frankford line subway or in the median strip at 52nd Street. These places are sites of autonomy for many hustling and/or otherwise dispossessed Philadelphians to create opportunity for themselves. Many classroom conversations have taken place about how we were halted by an ambitious vendor putting smelling oil on our wrists in the middle of a morning or post-school relay to the next subway bus. Conversations like these create moments of joy in the classroom, and I want my students to understand that idiosyncratic happenings are not only unique in their home city but they shaped the identity of Venice as well. Ironically enough, in the painting the greatest idiosyncratic happening that could happen– a literal miracle by a divine power is not centered in the world of the painting. In fact, it is easy to overlook due to the mass of people near the harbor. The Rialto bridge, which connected the commercial and financial life of Venice, where it was possible to meet people from all parts of the world, sits center-right of the painting. While one may need a microscope to see him, there is a Black gondolier under the bridge. With the acknowledgement of the gondolier requires a tacit recognition of the Mediterranean slave trade and Venice’s complicity in slavery. While the exact origins of many Africans in Venice are unclear in notarial records, it is common knowledge that many enslaved West Africans arrived to Venice via Spain and Portugal and that many enslaved East and Central Africans arrived to Venice via North Africa and the Ottoman Empire7. Furthermore, it is of common knowledge that once enslaved Africans arrived to Venice, that they were often forced into domestic servitude which included being a gondolier; however, when they were manumitted, many stayed in their previous role in order to avoid economic precarity8. In the midst of diverse crowds, the gondolier serves as a punctum to understand the complicated and intricate social life of Venice and helps students to understand the world that Othello had to navigate.
Altarpiece with St.James
Guiding Questions: Who are the victims in this painting? Who are the victors in this painting? What do you think is the purpose of this altarpiece?
In the Altarpiece with St. James, the overall goal is for students to understand the historical importance of religious differences during the 16th century. A lot of times, many American students (and teachers) take for granted living in a secular Christian state where religious differences are pointed sites of social conflict rather than a totalizing force of social disharmony. But awareness of religious differences is necessary in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is known informally as a “Black Mecca” where over 200,000 people are Muslim and about 20% of Philadelphia Public School students are Muslim.9 Students will be challenged to consider how religious differences between the Christian Venetians and the Muslim Moors (although Othello was a Christianized Moor) helped facilitate a milieu of suspicion and conflict in the play. Academic Daniel Viktus elaborates on how religious anxieties in the play helped situate thematic conflict in Othello:
…Othello is known throughout the play as “the Moor” and remains a figure of blackness. Although a Christianized Moor, he retains traces of Islamic identity and serves as a focal point for anxieties about how converts to Christianity might betray their new faith and become an internal threat to Christendom. By placing the character of Othello under the scrutinizing gaze of a color-prejudiced audience, Shakespeare’s tragedy exhibits a tension between, on the one hand, the evangelistic mandate to make Christian converts throughout the world and, on the other hand, persistent ethnocentric fears of a contamination that could allegedly result from efforts to incorporate foreigners within the domestic Christian community.10
Understanding the facts presented by the author will help students to balance the role which religion and race are social pressures placed upon Othello. Modern interpretations of Othello largely center race and gender via character study of Othello and Desdemona, but religion still plays a major role in early modern work.
The Return of Othello
Guiding Questions: How would you describe the atmosphere of the painting and how does it communicate who has power in the painting? Look at the body language of the people in the painting, who do you think has status and who do you think is disempowered? Why? What does this painting communicate about the values of Venetian society?
In the Return of Othello, the overall goal of this painting is to delve into the binary of body and performance in order to unpack Othello’s stature in his society. This painting portrays Othello’s return to Venice after his victory of the Turks and is styled in the high art that venerates exemplary soldiers11. The feature of this painting that is admirable is that it features major characters within the play such as Othello, Desdemona and upon close inspection, a grimacing Iago. It is another work of art which is overwhelmingly crowded, but is more personal than the Rialto Bridge. While students would have needed a looking glass in order to understand the layers of drama in the Rialto Bridge painting, this painting demands that we not only observe Othello’s actions and heroics, but also coincidentally, the company that he keeps. It welcomes discussion about stereotypes that Othello is labeled by, albeit, he is displayed in a valorous stance. Students will then read essays and excerpts that highlight Othello’s racialization and difference in Venice, as well as early modern and modern representations of Othello. From Orson Welles to Ira Aldridge’s leading role as Othello, conversations about blackface in the media still run rampant today.
Present: There, There and Paired Works of Art
A dramatic contrast will be offered by the “present” section, in which we are going to explore Native American stereotypes and narrative archetypes in There, There (2018) by Tommy Orange. The paintings used in order to supplement the learning environment will be the RCA Indian Head Test Pattern (c.1947) by Brooks, Captain Cold or Ut-ha-wah (c.19th century) by William John Wilgus, and The warriors making their grand entry into the Medicine Lodge (c.1875) by Howling Wolf.
RCA Indian Head Test Pattern
Guiding Questions: When have you felt like a target? What role does the media play when it comes to misrepresenting Native peoples and what were the social consequences of this misrepresentation? What is the author’s attitude about the land and how does it challenge our relationship to it? ”
As much as it can be appreciated as a novelty (and is currently being sold as such), Orange starts frames the narrative in There, There through means of the Indian Head Test Pattern that used to be shown towards the end of scheduled television programming12. Before detailing the history of Indigenous violence in the Americas, he writes about the test pattern:
If you left the TV on, you’d hear a tone at 440 hertz–the tone used to tune instruments–and you’d see that Indian, surrounded by circles that looked like sights through riflescopes. There was what looked like a bullseye in the middle of the screen, with numbers like coordinates. The Indian’s head was just above the bull’s-eye, like all you’d need to do was nod up in agreement to set the sights on the target. This was just a test.13
Orange follows through with the description of the Indian Head Test Pattern by elaborating on the first Thanksgivings in America with the poisoning of two hundred Natives and the brutal capture of Metacomet by the captain of the very first American Ranger, Benjamin Church. Detail after historical detail, the symbolism of the rifle sights is more than explicit, however, there are deeper implications of the Indian Head Test Pattern that require a cursory understanding of Native American cosmology. Specifically, the Natives’ relationship with the land and the complex interrelationship that people have with the land is a defining feature of Indigenous identity and cosmology14 . Since the Indian Head Test Pattern is integral to the prologue, this piece will be introduced before and after it is read. Through guided conversation, students must recognize the contradiction of the “Indian Head” or Native Americans, being acknowledged and visible in the test pattern, however the background or the “land” of the visual text is largely vast, blank, and empty which signifies dispossession and dislocation (a tall task, but not impossible!). However, it also can affirm the idea that “the land is everywhere and nowhere” as per Orange’s commentary.15 Students should be guided to exercise awareness of when Native characters status’ of visibility in the context of their individual conflicts as well as their attitudes towards a sense of belonging in their environment.
Ut-ha-wah
Guiding Questions: Describe the demeanor of the subject of the painting, what do you think the artist is communicating about his character? Given what we have learned about the middle ground, which character in the text best represents this painting?
The painting by Wilgus forces audiences to reconcile with the history of colonization and with essential questions of representation in settings that are considered “middle ground” territory. The concept of the “middle ground” was coined by Richard White in which worlds between the colonized and the colonizer overlap but leave a space where cultures can adapt to new conditions– oftentimes, this allowed a syncretism between Native and European cultures16. Students will be guided to analyze elements in Ut-ha-wah’s that comes from his Native identity and elements of the painting that seem to have come from European contact. Students will analyze how these elements interact with each other in order to build upon the theme of the portrait. Students will make connections to the main text with characters who have had to have had to have had to survive in “the middle ground” such as Dene Oxedene who is a bi-racial Native character who is tasked with creating a series of interviews in order to please a “diverse” body of grant funders. As a supplemental force through a pairing of the reading by Ariel Moniz “Being Native American in a Stereotypical and Appropriated North America” (2016). True to its title, the second reading breaks down common Native stereotypes that are baked into representations of Native Americans. However, it heavily relies on mass media productions such as Westerns in order to communicate the point. This article will serve as a nexus for how we understand the twelve voices that oscillate within the narrative in There, There.
Entry into the Medicine Lodge
Guiding Questions: How is community displayed in this painting? How did the artist interact with the characters in the painting? Who is empowered or disempowered in the painting? What does this painting comment about community and tradition?”
In the world of There, There, it is central to understand the role of the pow-wow as the center of community and the nucleus of conflict and resolution. This painting is a Cheyenne ceremony that depicts a grand festival with congregants around a center pole. From looking at the picture, students will make inferences about the type of ceremony that is taking place in the photo and why it may be necessary for the Cheyenne to maintain this tradition. Furthermore, students will compare and contrast the festivals that have taken place in what was considered New Spain–that is the Matachines Dance (in New Mexico) and the Santa Fe Fiesta. This is congruent with the central setting of There, There being Oakland, California, which was considered a part of New Spain. With regards to the Matachines Dance, it was performed by Pueblo and Hispanic communities in New Mexico and happens around Christmas time17. There are contested beliefs around the celebration as it is believed to have come from Spain to celebrate how the Catholics overtook the Moors. However, other Natives have interpreted that the El Monarcha is representative of Montezuma instead of the Spanish Crown18. However, many Hispanics celebrate the festival as a symbol of how their language survives in an English dominant culture. Like the Entry into the Medicine Lodge, the center pole is integral to the ceremony, with many people dressed and performing as a king, clowns, and bulls. On the other hand, the Santa Fe festival is much more contentious as the history celebrated colonial violence. The Santa Fe festival traces its history to 1712, and it commemorates the 1692-3 reconquest of New Mexico by Spanish conquistadors after the Pueblo people incited revolution against Spanish draconian Requerimiento19. For this particular unit, my students will have to acknowledge that traditions are important, however, we must be responsible for their history in order not to perpetuate historical violence.
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