“Measure Them Right”: Lorraine Hansberry and the Struggle for Peace

Lieberman, Robbie

doi:10.1521/siso.2011.75.2.206

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Money in the play is also viewed as negative because of its connection to capitalism which opposes Hansberry’s communist views. Lieberman (2011) believes that “Hansberry’s interest in and activities on behalf of peace reflect her ties to the Communist left during the early years of the Cold War” (p. 207). In the play, Beneatha says that George is “shallow,” and when Ruth asks her “what do you mean he’s shallow?” Beneatha answers that “[h]e’s Rich !” (Hansberry, 1994, p. 505).…”

Section: Symbolism and The Contingency Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (Ir)Representability of the Belated Traumatic Wound in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun

Haj

2021

Journal of Black Studies

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The dissociation of the traumatic moment from memory makes articulating the traumatic experience problematic. Henceforth, trauma becomes an inexplicable wound that can be narrated in a myriad of ways, yet none of which has a closure. The traumatized subjects are in need for expressing their pain, especially that telling one’s story and finding witnesses to the experience is therapeutic in the case of trauma. Thus, writers strive to represent their personal trauma and/or their collective one through various techniques to convey the experience as authentically as possible. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a remarkable endeavor to articulate the author’s own traumatic childhood experience, as well as the broader trauma of African American people who have suffered so long because of slavery and its aftermath. This paper argues that Hansberry’s A Raisin addresses trauma and represents it through four major techniques: the choice of drama as a genre, the mode of genuine realism, intertextuality, and symbolism. To realize this purpose, the study explores the play in light of the theoretical framework of trauma studies, starting from its outset with Freud’s essential concepts, and moving to Cathy Caruth’s and Shoshana Felman’s integral contributions to the field.

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Section: Symbolism and The Contingency Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (Ir)Representability of the Belated Traumatic Wound in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun

Haj

2021

Journal of Black Studies

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“…He was blacklisted and attacked from all sides, with the white press calling him a traitor, the Black press denying that he spoke for Black people, and the Cold War state apparatus discussing whether such statements were grounds for the forfeiture of his citizenship (Merriweather 2002). Given this backlash, liberal peace and civil rights organizations began to expel and exclude communists and “fellow travelers” like Robeson, to omit policies and platforms that might be construed as communist, and to mute any criticism of U.S. foreign policy that contravened Cold War statist pedagogy (Lieberman 2011). The fact that liberal Black leaders and organizations felt compelled to disassociate themselves from Robeson—who had never admitted membership in the CPUSA—and those like him, and to enshrine their programs in patriotic nationalism, underscores that the conjuncture of Blackness, radicalism, internationalism, and peace activism was anathema to the U.S.…”

Section: Radical Black Peace Activism As National Security Threatmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Battle for Peace During ‘Scoundrel Time’

Burden-Stelly¹

2019

Du Bois Rev.

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Using the praxis and persecution of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois as a case study, this article analyzes the ways in which anticommunism became a tool of investigating, policing, discrediting, and ultimately curtailing what I call “Radical Black Peace Activism.” During the Cold War, the U.S. state apparatus treated this form of activism as an anti-American, foreign-inspired threat to national security attributable to the Communist “peace offensive.” Radical Black Peace Activists linked the end of global conflict, disarmament, and non-proliferation with antiracism, anticolonialism, anti-imperialism, and socialism. They argued that progress and justice could only be realized through international cooperation and peaceful coexistence. In other words, they demanded a new world order that would displace the United States, and its relentless militarism, as the world’s police. The investigation, indictment, and defamation of W. E. B. Du Bois, which coincided with the intensification of the Korean War, is illustrative of how Radical Black Peace Activism was treated as a form of Soviet-backed subversion. Through anticommunism, the U.S. state apparatus deemed the use of anti-Black and antiradical repression imperative to its security, stability, and status as the global defender of freedom and democracy.

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“To Be a Man”: Progressive Masculinities in Lorraine Hansberry’s Cold War-Civil Rights Plays

Burrell

2019

The Civil Rights Theatre Movement in New York, 1939–1966

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“Measure Them Right”: Lorraine Hansberry and the Struggle for Peace

Cited by 8 publications

References 9 publications

The (Ir)Representability of the Belated Traumatic Wound in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun

The (Ir)Representability of the Belated Traumatic Wound in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun

In Battle for Peace During ‘Scoundrel Time’

“To Be a Man”: Progressive Masculinities in Lorraine Hansberry’s Cold War-Civil Rights Plays

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