Teaching the Experimental Arts of American Protest

• Published in: Radical teacher (Cambridge) no. 79; pp. 2 - 6
• Main Author: Entin, Joseph
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brooklyn Institute for Critical Education, Inc 22-06-2007; Center for Critical Education of New York; Center for Critical Education of NY
• Subjects: Aesthetic Education; Aesthetics; African Americans; American literature; American Studies; Art objects; Art photography; Artists; Arts and society; Avant garde; Black history; British & Irish literature; Civil liberties; Civil rights; College students; Congressional hearings; Demonstrations; Documentary films; Education; Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns) (1888-1965); Feminism; Fiction; Group Discussion; Hip hop music; Historical text analysis; Laborers; Literary Genres; Literature; Methods; Modernist art; Narrative poetry; Poetic meter; Poetry; Political activism; Political protests; Politics; Radicalism; Rich, Adrienne (1929-2012); Rukeyser, Muriel (1913-1980); Social activism; Social aspects; Study and teaching; Subcultures; Teaching; Tragedy; Undergraduate Students; Valdez, Luis; New York; United States > US
• ISSN: 0191-4847; 1941-0832

Published in 1938 as part of her book U.S. 1, "The Book of the Dead" is based on Rukeyser's investigation, performed with her friend the photographer Nancy Naumberg, of the notorious 1930s Hawk's Nest disaster, which was for many years the largest industrial "accident" in US history, in which upwards of 2,000 workers contracted silicosis, a fatal lung disease, while digging a water diversion tunnel.1 Rukeyser's poem is what might be called a form of documentary modernism -an "experimental fusion of poetry and non-literary languages" drawn from journalistic accounts, transcripts of Congressional hearings and interviews, excerpts of letters, even stock market accounts.\n Wright and Rosskam's book, like much of Wright's fiction, tends to give short shrift to African American women, and their role in black history and activism.