African Heartbeat

This book critically examines classic works of literature and film to suggest ways in which study of fictional characters, cultural themes, and vivid imagery helps us to grapple with, understand, and find resolutions for, problems that seriously concern Americans, including uniformed officers and public officials, as well as the general populace in todays turbulent times. Chapter 1 analyzes Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin and Tony Scotts Enemy of the State to support the authors theory that contemporary police violence against young African-American men is a result of persistence of vision whereby the powerful Fugitive Slave Laws of the American Civil War era exert a continuing influence upon the minds of law enforcement officers and almost all African Americans. Chapter 2 Zora Neale Hurston: Africa Transported to America discusses Jonahs Gourd Vine and Their Eyes Were Watching God to reveal the West African Vodun cosmological theology that informs and determines the lifelong trajectory of macho male protagonist John Buddy Pearson and feminist female protagonist Janie Mae Crawford in their quests for love and spiritual fulfillment. She suggests the Civil War disrupted a theological affinity shared by African Americans with Christian Americans, a kinship at the heart of Hurstons oeuvre. Chapter 3 reveals the West African origin of the theological design in Juan Rulfos Pedro Paramo: A Novel of Mexico and in short fiction works by several contemporary Mexican writers while also investigating the impact, in particular the toll in human suffering, of violent confrontations taking place along the border shared by Mexico and the U.S. Her critical analysis highlights the stream of consciousness narrative technique, which probes the depths of human agony exacted by violations of international boundaries. She demonstrates Shakespeares influence. Moreover, as a specialist in Comparative and English Literature, she contributes to Shakespeare scholarship on Hamlet, Prince of Denmark unprecedented insight into the meaning and significance of King Hamlets ghost, expanding traditional Christian perspectives and providing historical and textual explications that encompass West African Vodun cosmology. Dr. Watanabe diagnoses Hamlets madness as a funky aspect of Shakespeares knowledge of voodoo.