Angels in America
In her book The Social Imperative: Race, Close Reading, and Contemporary Literary Criticism, Paula Moya states, “When it comes to understanding how significant social categories like race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality structure individual experience and identity, as well as why it is necessary to appreciate and engage ‘worlds of sense’ that are anchored in experiences and identities other than one’s own, there may be no more efficient and effective approach than the close reading of individual works of literature” (6). Based on our discussions in this course relating to historical context and experiences of characters within literature, which may be outside your own experiences, perform a close reading of one (or more) of our selected texts. Take special care to focus on how your personal experiences shifted how you read that particular text. Did you consider the context in which the story, poem, or play was written? Did you consider the background of the author or the specific life experiences of the characters, as they were presented? How do these elements shape or change your experience of interacting with the story? You may also want to consider how these elements are affected over time. For example, is reading “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall the same experience in 2020 as it would have been in the 1960s? and this is the promt
