Katy-Anne Binstead

Ralph Waldo Emerson's work greatly influenced Carl Jung, whose thoughts are still important to literary scholars today. Transcendentalism was a major philosophy of the American Renaissance and in developing the founding myths of America. Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" shows some of the ways that Emerson's work is important to the literary canon.

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye are stories of women struggling with mental illness, fictional accounts of the psychological concept of dissociation, showing that dissociation has been an under-analyzed subject in literature throughout history.

Christianity has a complicated relationship with slavery in that Christian beliefs were one of the greatest contributions to slavery in the first place, but also as Christian thought began to evolve and certain theologians began to come up with ideas such as liberation theology, some segments of Christianity also have a lot of influence in the abolition of slavery as well. We see these two thoughts at play within the writings of Frederick Douglass who tends to rightly blame Christianity for slavery, as well as its role in the abolition of slavery. The writings of Harriet Jacobs give a different perspective on the role of Christianity in slavery, for Jacobs it was a source of empowerment and helpful in finding her freedom. This shows that the Bible can be used to promote either slavery or emancipation, depending on who is reading the Bible. There are still many fundamentalist and evangelical sects within Christianity whose beliefs are still inherently racist and many who still believe that African Americans ought to be slaves, but many of the more liberal or mainline denominations are doing theology that promotes the idea of the value and worth of every human being. Exploring in particular Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglass, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, we will see the different ways Christianity both contributed to the propagation of slavery as well as the ways it was able to contribute to abolition, as well as what Christianity can do now and in the future. We look at Christianity from the lens of these two slaves and their experiences.