Main Protagonist Research Articles

Reconciliation of Cross cultural Tension in Chinua Achebe’s Marriage is a Private Affair

Cross cultural tension is one of the major themes in Chinua’s Achebe’s novels and short stories. The writer projects the same theme in his story - Marriage is a Private Affair in the context of Nigerian, African culture and tradition. This paper explores the generation gap between old and new owing to the effect of globalization, and its subsequent resolution and reconciliation. Cultural tension or conflict arises in a family or a society when new generation ruptures the old prevalent traditions. This article centers on how the Main Protagonist of the story Nnemeka, being influenced with modern culture, establishes the cultural bridge through inter-caste or inter-racial marriage, thereby challenging the old Nigerian, African tradition. Marriage is a social custom and it often occurs on the conventions of society in which people are brought up. When a person breaks the convention, it generates the conflict or tension in family and society. However, reconciliation is inevitable in the ultimate state as there is no way out. The paper conceptualizes the theoretical concept of cultural studies adopted by Stuart Hall in the light of fictional dramatization. His theory of Cultural construction refers to the elements of social and cultural characteristics as mere constructs invented by society This research attempts to answer: how does the growing globalization affect cultural taboos and rituals on Nigerian, African marital culture? The growing trend of globalization even interferes marriage custom as depicted in the Story- Marriage is a Private Affair.

“Together We’re Strong:” Cross-Cultural Solidarity in Angie Cruz’s Dominicana

In this article, I examine how Dominican American author Angie Cruz’s novel Dominicana (2019) uses the bildungsroman genre to point to cross-cultural solidarity, or different communities working in tandem, to contest hegemonic discourse. Cruz’s take on a bildungsroman has an interesting inflection that juxtaposes learning and unlearning in two different societies (Dominican and American) where lessons do not inform each other. Because Cruz's main protagonist Ana’s sense of Self develops alongside her civic engagement, I argue that it is useful to think of Dominicana as a feminist bildungsroman. Along with her brother-in-law César, Ana searches for change through relationality and intercultural empathy as vehicles toward larger community engagement that shares a common plight. Due to her peripheral positionality as an undocumented, non-English-speaking Person of Color in 1960s New York, she finds a location of identity within an alternative community of African American and white protestors, whose intersection is of class and political beliefs. My goal is not to overlook or minimize differences between groups, differences that have, at times, been contentious, but rather to emphasize that Cruz’s sense of belonging is guided by increased engagement in alternative communities that share in her alienation. Utilizing a theoretical lens grounded in the works of Jill Toliver Richardson, Rita Felski, and Amy Cummins and Myra Infante-Sheridan, I conclude that for Cruz, intercultural empathy and alternative communities are viable paths toward resisting the American national community that presents itself as an unattainable model of assimilation.

In Search of the Twenty-First Century's "Great American Graphic War Novel"

In Search of the Twenty-First Century's "Great American Graphic War Novel" Randy Brown (bio) Despite more than two decades of armed conflict, concurrent with what is arguably a new golden age of comics—the latter driven as much by developments in crowdfunding, digital publishing and platforms, and multibillion-dollar movie blockbusters as by hard-copy retail sales of monthly periodicals—there seem to be precious few examples of long-form sequential art about America's Global War on Terror (GWOT). Still, if you know where to dig, there are some dazzling treasures to be discovered. Three potential "Great American Graphic War Novels" triangulate and illuminate the nuances, frustrations, and outcomes of twenty-first-century wars as seen through American goggles. Two of these are written and illustrated by a single creator: Maximilian Uriarte, a former US Marine and creator of the satirical three-panel, black-and-white web comic Terminal Lance. With grunt's-eye views and truth-bomb satires of modern military culture, Uriarte's pithy and poignant work compares favorably to that of World War II soldier-artist Bill Mauldin, creator of the iconic "Willie and Joe" characters once published in Stars and Stripes. In his 2016 coming-of-age-in-the-Marines graphic novel The White Donkey, Uriarte moves beyond slapstick and dick jokes while using characters and line art similar to those of his original Terminal Lance strips. To these he adds a practice of using minimalist, watercolor-like palettes to change scenes and moods among pages—a discipline he skillfully and dramatically breaks with occasional splashes of spot-color: an American flag, an energy drink, a puddle of once-human goo. The book's title involves a roadside encounter with a white donkey—an animal notably defined by an absence of pigmented color—a quasi-magical image that comes to represent a recurring question: What are you looking for? The narrative follows two buddies, Abe Belatzeko and Jesus Garcia, from boot camp to Iraq and back again. Between scenes of bawdy humor and barracks life, Uriarte gives equal attentions to more-serious topics: "thank you for your service" alienations from friends and family, alcohol abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and veteran suicide. [End Page 53] At a security post downrange in Iraq, Abe is berated by an American-educated Iraqi police officer. He accuses the young Marines of arrogance. "This is not a journey for me," the officer says. "I have met many people like you over the last few years, coming here to fulfill some personal conquest, but you never stop to think how arrogant you are. You seek some enlightenment at the expense of my people. You do not care about Iraq. You do not care about my people." Published in 2020, Uriarte's graphic novel Battle Born: Lapis Lazuli navigates philosophical minefields similar to those of The White Donkey but features wildly different characters, settings, and colors. A squad of US Marines deploys to the northeasternmost frontier of Afghanistan and wrestles with its mission to drive a wedge between Afghan villagers, who are dependent on mining and trade in semi-precious blue gemstones, and their would-be Taliban oppressors. Instead of minimalist and monochromatic pages, Uriarte's unguttered panels are now saturated with bold and sumptuous colors. These he deploys to great effect in hues and tints, particularly in his depictions of mountain sunrises, shadows, and even snowstorms. More than once, Uriarte deliberately slows the action down to a series of widescreen, single-panel "splash" pages, encouraging readers to slowly and deliberately engage the views. Page turn, after page turn. The book takes its title from the motto of the state of Nevada, the home turf of Uriarte's main protagonist. Sgt. "Battle Born" King (no first names are given) is a Black kid who grew up in a white foster family in Reno. King becomes a hulking, brooding warrior of great physical strength and few words. In an afterword, the author mentions that it was his intention to model the character on R. E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, a stoic sword-and-sorcery character from 1930s pulp fiction. Conan continues to be present in various popular media...

Technology surveillance in veterinary vaccine adjuvants (2015-2022): University-industry interaction

Context: The new generation of immunoenhancers will have to offer solutions to each clinical and technological limitation that currently exists. This innovative context requires periodic technological surveillance by the veterinary biopharmaceutical industry to anticipate technological changes and predict future competitive advantages. Aims: To evaluate the current status, scientific trends, and technological projections in the use of veterinary immunological adjuvants for productive and companion species in the period 2015 and 2021. Methods: The bibliometric analysis included scientific articles on adjuvants in veterinary medicine published in English in 2015–2021 and indexed on the Scopus and Web of Science platforms. All relevant records retrieved between 2015 and 2022 were grouped using the EndNote bibliographic manager, while the analysis of the relational metric indicator was performed and viewed by VOSviewer®. Instead, data on the main commercial veterinary vaccine adjuvants in 2022 were collected from the official websites of 20 veterinary vaccine manufacturers with experience in the market. Results: The academy dedicated 68.2% of its production to disseminating articles with original experimental results with 73.6% being novel notifications about adjuvants of natural, microbial and nanotechnological origin. Industrial production mainly used monoadjuvation (86.9%), inorganic salts adjuvants (48.1%), particularly aluminum hydroxide (43.0%), and classical technology (89.2%) to produce their commercial formulations. Ruminants, swines, and poultry dominated both sectors, with ruminants being the main protagonist. Conclusions: The new scientific knowledge will not have a significant impact on the veterinary pharmaceutical industry in the short term and the hegemonic continuity of traditional adjuvants, in particular aluminum hydroxide, is expected.

Anneliese's House by Lou Andreas-Salomé

Reviewed by: Anneliese's House by Lou Andreas-Salomé Liz Ametsbichler Lou Andreas-Salomé, Anneliese's House. Translated by Frank Beck and Raleigh Whitinger. Camden House, 2021. 227 pp. Cloth, $99.00. Written mostly in 1904 and published in 1921, Das Haus: Eine Familiengeschichte vom Ende vorigen Jahrhunderts (The house: A family history from the end of the last century) was Lou Andreas-Salomé's final novel. The translators of this work, Frank Beck and Raleigh Whitinger, state that their goals were to provide "English speakers access to the novel" and also to offer "a broader view of the development of Andreas-Salomé's skill in recasting, in poetically adroit narrative form, her own struggle for social and intellectual independence" (x). They assert that her fiction presented contemporary audiences with a "range of perspectives on the potential of—and the problems with—women's moves towards autonomy" within and outside of marriage (x). This underscores their decision to expand the original title to Anneliese's House, first to avoid the book "being confused with a host of other novels bearing a similar title, but also to suggest the poetic tone that the main female protagonist, Anneliese Branhardt, imparts to her household, by thought and deed" (lvii). The novel's German subtitle indicates the temporal setting of the novel but not necessarily that this house—Anneliese's—embodies the dominant patriarchal norms, and questioning thereof, in late-nineteenth-century Germany. The translators take great care in providing the context for this novel, while also commenting on other works in their comprehensive three-part introduction and in the extensive chapter endnotes. First, in the "Biographical Sketch" they discuss many of the mutual influences of Andreas-Salomé's life. Most familiar are Friedrich Nietzsche, [End Page 108] Sigmund Freud, and Rainer Maria Rilke; their influence underscores her interest in philosophy, psychology, and literature. Her knowledge of and expertise in these fields is evident throughout the novel. Indeed, many of her friendships and personal relationships, female and male, find their way into Das Haus, as the translators note. They also emphasize just how independently and confidently Andreas-Salomé encountered each of her "illustrious friends and confidantes on her own terms" and explored diverse possibilities in her writing, both fiction and nonfiction (xxviii). Next, in "The Critical Fortunes of Andreas-Salomé and Das Haus," Beck and Whitinger discuss the mixed reception the author received, particularly within the scope of the women's movement. Some of her noted contemporaries (including Christine Touaillon and Gabriele Reuter) praised this work, while others (such as Hedwig Dohm) questioned, generally, her commitment to the feminist cause. The translators expand this debate by tracing critical reception through the decades. In "Grasping the Novel: Interpretive Trends and Points to Ponder," they locate the novel "as a familial mirror of the greater context of the Wilhelmine-era 'Frauenbewegung' [women's movement] and the ideals of emancipation that the author herself lived and [ … ] shared with her feminist colleagues and contemporaries" (xxxviii). They also examine more recent interpretive readings of Das Haus and suggest further interpretations to ponder. The introductory analysis of the author's biography, of the novel within the backdrop of the Wilhelmine era, and of the critical reception of Andreas-Salomé from her lifetime until today prepares the reader well for approaching the novel itself. Beck and Whitinger adhere closely to the original, making an effort to "preserve both the meaning and character of the author's" nuance in the thoughts and dialogue of the characters (lvii). In their notes they explicitly lay out their four guiding principles. These clearly alert the reader to their translation process and to the deviations from or expansions to the text for clarity, always explained in the chapter endnotes. In addition, the endnotes explicate events in the text by providing context or critical comment, as well as intertextual, biblical, artistic, and biographical references to enhance the reading experience. This translation makes Andreas-Salomé's last novel accessible to English speakers and offers an important addition to the growing body of critical work on the author. The translators point out that much has been written on the importance of Andreas-Salomé's nonfiction work and her role...

Coping with natural disasters: Political leadership framing of the 2018 wildfires in Greece

AbstractThe present study examines the discourse of the then Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, following the 2018 July wildfire disaster in the Eastern Attica suburbs including Mati to reveal the frames employed by the main protagonist utilizing existing framing models while also incorporating the notions of ethic of care and strategic ambiguity. The then government received extensive criticism by the media and political opponents in regard to the management and communication responses of the then Prime Minister. A content analysis was conducted to the statements made by the then Prime Minister. Findings indicate that Tsipras during the initial stages of the crisis acknowledged the extent of crisis while also emphasizing the successful crisis response efforts. Moreover, strategic ambiguity along with low levels of “caring” were important elements of Tsipras' narrative at the initial stage. As the public outrage and criticism intensified, Tsipras incorporated a more caring profile and presented the disaster as a “critical opportunity” by shifting the blame to previous governments and proposing policy changes.

The Symbolic Unconscious and the Real in Repulsion

Polanski’s movie Repulsion depicts the unconscious world and behavior of its main protagonist Carol, and this paper explores her unconscious in Lacanian terms through the concepts of the Symbolic unconscious and the Real. This study claims that her unconscious behavior is representative of the symbolic unconscious as reflective of a logically rational system such as is the structure of language. However, her unconscious state also displays something that traverses the symbolic unconscious, that can never be understood by such a system. That which underlies and traverses the symbolic system is the real. Carol’s repeated hallucinations of rape, and the guilt felt due to her loss of virginity through rape, reveal her symbolic unconscious dominated by a patriarchal ideology. Carol’s symptoms demonstrate that she internalizes the patriarchal value of the immorality of loss of one’s maidenhood for any reason other than in marriage. At the same time, Carol portrays the symptoms of a coarse and unchaste prostitute, that completely conflict with her virtuous demeanor. Acting like a prostitute represents a form of resistance to the patriarchal values that subjugate her sexual drive. This act is an expression of the (residual) real that escapes the violence and finiteness of the symbolic world, appearing as an excess inaccessible to symbolism.

A MOUSE’S COURAGE: THE CHARACTERIZATIONS OF THE BOY IN ROALD DAHL'S THE WITCHES

This study aims to analyze the character of The Boy as the main protagonist character in Roald Dahl's The Witches. The researcher collected the data by using the method of close reading and note-taking. As the main protagonist in the novel, The Boy was described as cheerful, curious, brave, and intelligent. He was described to be optimistically move on with his life after his parents’ deaths and after he was turned into a mouse. He was also a curious child, which lead him to investigate the witches' activity at the resort. As a brave and intelligent mouse, The Boy found tricks to tackle the Grand Witch and her army of witches. As a child who was turned into a mouse The Boy’s characterizations enabled him to save other children from being turned into a mouse. These characterizations could inspire children and readers in general to be optimistic in facing life.

Archiving the Algerian Revolution in Zineb Sedira's Gardiennes d'images

Archiving the Algerian Revolution in Zineb Sedira's <i>Gardiennes d'images</i>

The East African Urban City Space as a Sight of Dislocation of Masculinities : A Study of Peter Kimani’s before the Rooster Crows

This paper interrogates the fluidity of masculinities in Post-colonial urban Kenya. The paper examines urban masculinity in Kenya through the experiences of the Muriuki, the protagonist in Peter Kimani’s Before the Rooster Crows .Muriuki transits from the village to the City encountering experiences that baptizes him to a new form of masculinity in comparison to his rural masculinity. Carton (2001) and Everett, (2000) aver that urban masculinity compared with rural masculinity is not strictly governed by traditional norms. They argue that there are new urbanite youths who strive to create a new status of manhood and masculinity by defining themselves violently against their fathers and authority. There is an outright rejection of family and fathers. The paper seeks to examine Carton and Everett’s assertion. The paper examines this new form of urban masculinity through the life of the main protagonist, Muriuki’s life in the city. The paper contends that masculinity is not static but fluid. Keywords: Urban Masculinity,,Emasculated, Hegemony, Subordinate DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/91-01 Publication date: August 31 st 2022

Telocytes and Macrophages in the Gut: From Morphology to Function, Do the Two Cell Types Interact with Each Other? Which Helps Which?

Telocytes and macrophages are ubiquitous cells located in loose connective tissues and share the same mesenchymal origin. Despite these common elements, depending on where they reside, these two cell types are profoundly different in terms of their morphology and functions. The purpose of this review is to provide an update on the knowledge regarding telocytes and macrophages in the gut, where their presence and significance have long been underestimated or misunderstood. The focus will be on the possibility that these two cell types interact with each other and on the potential meaning of these interactions. Based on the complexity of the topic, the variety of possible methodological approaches and the expertise of the author, the point of view in the discussion of the literature data will be mainly morphological. Furthermore, considering the relatively recent period in which these cell types have acquired a primary role in gastrointestinal functions, the attention will be greatly confined to those articles published in the last decade. The microbiota, another main protagonist in this context, will be mentioned only in passing. It is hoped that this review, although not exhaustive, will highlight the importance of macrophages and telocytes in the complex mechanisms that ensure intestinal functions.

Metallurgic Matter(ing)s: Mirrored Mandalorian Metal-Scapes, Mining(s), and Mimesis

This paper traverses the relationship between wo/man, metal, and the more-than-human world. Drawing for new materialisms, specifically Bennett’s (2004, 2009) notion of (metallurgic) thing-power and IJsseling’s (1997) conceptualization of mimesis, we entangle our (posthuman) perspectives with scenes from a popular science fiction show, The Mandalorian. Specifically, we are interested in how a fictional metal with extraordinary vibrant properties, known as beskar, reflects/mirrors aspects of identity articulation and formation for the show’s main protagonist, Din Djarin. Using a (mimetic) narrative approach, we constructed two composite narratives around two scenes depicting the aliveness of beskar in different ways. We also make an argument for the further interrogation into the way that metals are mined, manufactured, and manipulated and how these processes factor into the making and un-making of what it means to be human in a more-than-human world.

“A TRAGIC STORY ABOUT HELPLESSNESS, ANGER AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE”: AN AFFECTIVE READING OF OLGA TOKARCZUK’S DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD

The article is an interpretation of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead from the perspective of affective ecocriticism. The first section concentrates on the socio-political circumstances surrounding the novel’s release. This part of the article also considers Tokarczuk’s understanding of literature as an opportunity to experience sadness, frustration and anger in a cathartic way, and, in doing so, examine and better understand those emotions. It is argued that Drive Your Plow concentrates on two emotions in particular – sorrow and anger – doing so in the context of a wider debate on moral outrage and ecological activism. The article devotes considerable attention to anger, as experienced by the main protagonist of the novel, Janina Duszejko. It is shown that the notion of anger as retribution permeates Duszejko’s conviction that one has the moral obligation to oppose injustice. Nevertheless, Duszejko’s violent actions problematize her stance on anger, emphasizing her inability to control this emotion.

TORTURED CITY TORTURED MIND: THE CONTINUOUS INTERPLAY OF INDIVIDUAL (SUB)CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXTERNAL EVENTS IN K. A. PORTER’S PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER

This article focuses on Katherine Anne Porter’s semiautobiographical modernist novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider, a rare example of literature with a direct reference to the Spanish flu pandemic during the World War I. The article first provides a brief overview of critical approaches to the novella, situating it in the literary plague canon, then focuses on the war and the pandemic as the external factors that are not shown only to change the face of the society, but also to deeply affect people’s minds. As the main protagonist Miranda falls ill with the influenza and enters a strenuous combat with the disease, the reader gains access to her subconscious through a series of dreams and deliriums that Miranda experiences during her illness. These will be analysed using Bion’s theory of dreams to show that they present Miranda’s affective response to the external reality as well as her capacity to digest the previously indigested emotions.

The Representation of Identity Crisis in Minari: A Critical Discourse Analysis

This study examines the representation of identity crisis in Minari, an American film depicting the life of Korean diasporas in the USA. This study employed Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the identity crisis encountered by the main character and Korean and western cultural contact in the United States of America. The researchers analyzed the main protagonist using psychological perspectives to uncover unconsciousness in his decision-making to obtain the study's objectives. In this study, the main character of this film was Jacob, after undergoing the three stages of Greimas’ structural analysis. The main character displayed an identity crisis in discursive actions, non-discursive, and discourse materialization. Further analysis uncovered that immigration was the basis for the identity crisis in Minari. Moreover, the identity crisis was described in Jacob's roles in the diaspora process: the first child, husband, and father. Of the three roles, the circumstances experienced in the diaspora process made Jacob struggle with his identity. Fortunately, he overcame the identity crisis, which was symbolized by minari, a vegetable, as a symbol of perseverance in the film.

THE FORMING OF A FAMILY IN YAŞAR KEMAL’S NOVEL “IF THEY KILL THE SNAKE”

Yaşar Kemal is considered one of the important writers of short stories and novels in the Turkish Literature in the 20th century. His real name is Kemal Sadık Gogecli. He was born on 6th of October in 1923, which means before 23 days of the foundation of the Turkish Republic. He was born in town of Hamida (which is known now as Gökçedam) which belonged to Ottoman city. He was known by being a writer of series of novels called (İnce Memed) or (The thin Mohammed), which he wrote and complete it in a series about 32 years. He lived a very long life and wrote several short stories and novels among them are novels for children and epic novels as well as poems. Yaşar Kemal, who has a very great position in the Turkish literature, on 28th of February 2015 in Istanbul. Yaşar Kemal is considered one of the successful writers in the 20th and 21st centuries. Moreover, he was a journalist too. He died in the hospital after taking him to it and died because one of his organs stopped. He was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery in Istanbul. The writer, who signed on most of his writing, is the best example in writing his novel (If They Kill the Snake). It is a tragic novel that narrates the events happened in the town of Hamida in an Ottoman City where he was born. A woman whose name is “Ismi” and lives in the countryside plays the main protagonist in the novel. The year 1976 witnessed the publishing of several subjects by the novelist that deal with love, morality, mother mercy and many more. Forming a family means studying the family structure of the family. It can be seen from different perspectives especially in Turkey whose family structure is different according to the geography of each area. The form of the family, which includes several types such as the traditional and modern, is constructed according to the characters of the individuals by whom the family is formed. The writer in his novel “If They Kill the Snake” deals with to the subject of forming a family from different perspectives that is difficult to compare with the conventions and social structure of the modern time. This makes the novel in the first position among other novels written by out novelist. The abstract of the study includes a research about the life of the writer Yaşar Kemal and his literary personality as well as his literary writings. It introduces also a research about the concept of the family. In the end, there is a study to analyze the structure of the family from the point of view of Yaşar Kemal after introducing a plot summary of the novel “If They Kill the Snake”.

Characterization of Bipolar Disorder in Anton Chekhov's The Black Monk.

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a famous Russian author and physician known for his dramas and short stories. Many of his works also address mental health problems. Here, the present paper is investigating his novella The Black Monk that was published in 1894. Its main protagonist, Kovrin, likely suffered from bipolar disorder as he exhibited elevated mood, grandiosity, lack of sleep, and delusions. His symptoms are analyzed based on current DSM-5 criteria, and he appears to meet diagnostic criteria for bipolar I disorder. Chekhov himself suffered from a mood disorder, but we speculate that he himself exhibited some bipolar symptoms. Those were likely an inspiration for when he wrote The Black Monk.

US investment giants Vanguard Group and BlackRock on the path to establishing a global oligopoly

Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street, the largest US investment funds, form the Big Three, often referred to as the "Three that own the US". These three financial corporations are intertwined and hold strategically significant stakes in industrial, energy, transport, pharmaceutical, food, information and technology companies, the vast majority of which are multinational corporations themselves. Through dominance in the system of corporate elections, the Big Three, or rather its main protagonist Blackrock, gets the opportunity to "manage the management" of other companies and corporations, and thereby dominate the financial, technological and other global markets, suppress the activities of competitors, establish and spread their value system and influence the economy and politics of the United States itself through the closest interaction with the US Federal Reserve System.

Locating the Hadzabe People in the Wilderness

Abstract There exists a close relationship between the use of a personal name as the means of individuating a single person and highlighting that person’s ties to an entire culture. Many aspects of the Hadzabe’s entire culture are reported as having been eroded by the influences of other major ethnic groups (including Datooga, Isanzu, Iraqw, and Sukuma) in the Lake Eyasi area, as well as by Christian missionaries and by the sedentarization programs of the Government of Tanzania. Despite these major impacts, Hadzabe local names still exhibit affiliations to their indigenous foraging lifestyle, associating them individually with features of their physical landscapes and with regional flora and fauna, as well as with historical circumstances and events occurring at the time of their birth. A new-born infant is always featured as the main protagonist in the family, and these remembrances of indigenous culture still prevail in the naming of newly born children in Hadzabe society.

“Doomed by the Confusion in Their Design”: Racialized Urban Space, Redlining, and Monolithic Whiteness in Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones

Abstract While Paule Marshall’s novel Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959) has long been celebrated as a pivotal text in the canon of Caribbean American and African American women's literature, not enough attention has been paid to the material conditions underlying the coming-of-age story of her main protagonist, Selina Boyce. A close reading of the novel’s engagement with urban space—in particular with the changes that Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood undergoes in the late 1930s and early 1940s—reveals not only that the text contains an astute critique of American race formation at one of its most crucial moments, namely in the context of the New Deal’s policies of redlining and white flight, but also that Marshall ought to be considered as an early, but important, voice of both critical race theory and whiteness studies.