academic struggles

[drydem]

So, in my dissertation, I have a short section on Zora Neale Hurston and I'm having a lot of trouble with using the word negro. While it is a term that Hurston uses and is historically appropriate to what she was seeking, it still is kind of twinge worthy for me as a word, given the way in which it represents a phase of American history marked by official disenfranchisement of African American voters and the perpetration of horrible acts of intimidation and violence upon them. As is, I use the term but have a footnote about why. What do people think about this as an approach?

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think footnoting is an appropriate means of dealing with it. I'd also say you should use the term when speaking in direct connection with her work, but another word when talking more generally. By which I mean -- to invent an example -- that I if I were writing about someone who had written a lot about Christopher Marlowe, usually calling him Kit, I'd say "Kit" when talking about the man as seen in the text, and "Marlowe" when talking about him through my own lens. Does that make sense?