Tell My Horse †A Travelogue by Zora Neale Hurston

Tell My Horse – A Travelogue by Zora Neale Hurston An offspring of the first African American migration from the South to North and Northwest, the Harlem Renaissance spanned roughly twenty five years (1910-1935). With literature, art, and music as the primary vehicle, the epoch was characterized by racial pride and desire to â€Å"uplift† the race (Bean, 1991). Proof of humanity, the demand for equality, perseverance, belief in self and ability, teamwork – the corresponding counter-balance racist circumstances – permeated the ideological core of this movement/ era.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Tell My Horse – A Travelogue by Zora Neale Hurston specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The Harlem Renaissance birthed many iconic African Americans figures with Zora Neale Hurston being among the cadre. Hurston’s literary repertoire comprised four novels, fifty plus short stories and plays as well essays with her 1935 short story â€Å"M ules and Men† and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) as her magnum opus. An ardent folklorist of African American culture, her studies in anthropology and ethnography exude her work. Hurston’s extensive travels throughout the American South and Caribbean furthered her folkloric scope/lens. So called unrefined speech patterns or dialect permeate her work. Use of such idiomatic dialect as well as lack of political and even racial focus placed her at odds with Renaissance contemporaries and intelligentsia such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Hughes, etc. who felt it was stereo-typical and fueled racist fodder. The conflict was only indicative of the dualistic nature of the era in terms of depiction of the African American experience in the United States and the Diaspora. A travelogue whether in the form of documentary, film, literature, or journal – describes a journey. Chronicling her ethnographic journey in Haiti and Jamaica is Hurton’s 1938 t ravelogue Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. Opinion divided among literary critics and devotees, Tell My Horse is deemed her worst and most insignificant work or a fascinating guide and invaluable resource depicting Jamaican and Haitian culture, in particular the mysteries and horrors of voodoo. The fascination element is intensified because Hurston provides a vivid and authentic depiction in part due to not being a mere observer but rather a participant/initiate. Irony intertwined with allegory and incoherency characterizes the underlining message/theme and aura of the work. In the first chapter, Hurston provides a list of thought provoking and witty proverbs in which the surface meaning has an encoded dormant meaning. For example, the proverb Rockatone at ribber bottom no know sun hot Hurston translates as The person in easy circumstances cannot appreciate the sufferings of the poor (Hurston, 9).†Advertising Looking for term paper on american lite rature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The proverbs and her interpretations have a duel purpose – they illustrate irony, humor, and most importantly the richness of the Jamaican philosophic culture and are Hurston’s self-reflexive commentary on her narrative. The title itself supports the narrative strategy in terms of the double voice nature. Tell My Horse (Parlay cheval ou’ in French) is a popular form of figurative speech in Haiti. The Horse symbolizes the voice of powerless speaking without repercussion. Under the whip and guidance of the spirit-rider, the horse does and says many things that he or she would never have uttered unbidden. That phrase Parlay cheval ou [tell my horse] is in daily, hourly use in Haiti and no doubt it is used as a blind for self-expression (Mikell, 221).† The narrative style is indicative of a pervading and coexisting dichotomy – freedom and constraint, self expression and vulnerability, the powerful and the powerless. Tragically Hurston died in obscurity and poverty. Much acclaim/focus on her work, however, has surfaced in the past thirty years. Capturing the pure simplicities of African American life and the Diaspora, Zora Neale Hurton’s literary contribution leaves an indelible mark on African American literature and the literary world as a whole. Bean, Annemarie.  A Sourcebook on African-American Performance: Plays, People, Movements. London: Routledge, 1999. Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell My Horse. 1938. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Mikell, Gwendolyn. When Horses Talk: Reflections on Zora Neale Hurstons Haitian Anthropology. Phylon 43.3 (1982): 218-30. Wall, Cheryl A. The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Ed. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford University Press, 2001.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Tell My Horse – A Travelogue by Z ora Neale Hurston specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More

Henri Becquerel and the Discovery of Radioactivity

Henri Becquerel and the Discovery of Radioactivity Antoine Henri Becquerel (born December 15, 1852 in Paris, France), known as Henri Becquerel, was a French physicist who discovered radioactivity, a process in which an atomic nucleus emits particles because it is unstable. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie, the latter of whom was Becquerel’s graduate student. The SI unit for radioactivity called the becquerel (or Bq), which measures the amount of ionizing radiation that is released when an atom experiences radioactive decay, is also named after Becquerel. Early Life and Career Becquerel was born December 15, 1852, in Paris, France, to Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel and Aurelie Quenard. At an early age, Becquerel attended the preparatory school Lycà ©e Louis-le-Grand, located in Paris. In 1872, Becquerel began attending the École Polytechnique and in 1874 the École des Ponts et Chaussà ©es (Bridges and Highways School), where he studied civil engineering. In 1877, Becquerel became an engineer for the government in the Department of Bridges and Highways, where he was promoted to engineer-in-chief in 1894.  At the same time, Becquerel continued his education and held a number of academic positions. In 1876, he became an assistant teacher at the École Polytechnique, later becoming the school’s chair of physics in 1895. In 1878, Becquerel became an assistant naturalist at the Musà ©um d’Histoire Naturelle, and later became the professor of applied physics at the Musà ©um in 1892, after his father’s death. Becquerel was the third in his family to succeed this position. Becquerel received his doctorate from the Facultà © des Sciences de Paris with a thesis on plane-polarized light- the effect utilized in Polaroid sunglasses, in which light of only one direction is made to pass through a material- and the absorption of light by crystals. Discovering Radiation Becquerel was interested in phosphorescence; the effect utilized in glow-in-the-dark stars, in which light is emitted from a material when exposed to electromagnetic radiation, which persists as a glow even after the radiation is removed. Following Wilhelm Rà ¶ntgen’s discovery of X-rays in 1895, Becquerel wanted to see whether there was a connection between this invisible radiation and phosphorescence. Becquerel’s father had also been a physicist and from his work, Becquerel knew that uranium generates phosphorescence. On February 24, 1896, Becquerel presented work at a conference showing that a uranium-based crystal could emit radiation after being exposed to sunlight. He had placed the crystals on a photographic plate that had been wrapped in thick black paper so that only radiation that could penetrate through the paper would be visible on the plate. After developing the plate, Becquerel saw a shadow of the crystal, indicating that he had generated radiation like X-rays, which could penetrate through the human body. This experiment formed the basis of Henri Becquerel’s discovery of spontaneous radiation, which occurred by accident. Becquerel had planned to confirm his previous results with similar experiments exposing his samples to sunlight. However, that week in February, the sky above Paris was cloudy, and Becquerel stopped his experiment early, leaving his samples in a drawer as he waited for a sunny day. Becquerel did not have time before his next conference on March 2 and decided to develop the photographic plates anyway, even though his samples had received little sunlight. To his surprise, he found that he still saw the image of the uranium-based crystal on the plate. He presented these results on March 2 and continued to present results on his findings. He tested other fluorescent materials, but they did not produce similar results, indicating that this radiation was particular to uranium. He assumed that this radiation was different from X-rays and termed it â€Å"Becquerel radiation.† Becquerel’s findings would lead to Marie and Pierre Curie’s discovery of other substances like polonium and radium, which emitted similar radiation, albeit even more strongly than uranium. The couple coined the term â€Å"radioactivity† to describe the phenomenon. Becquerel won half of the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity, sharing the prize with the Curies. Family and Personal Life In 1877, Becquerel married Lucie Zoà © Marie Jamin, the daughter of another French physicist. However, she died the following year while giving birth to the couple’s son, Jean Becquerel. In 1890, he married Louise Dà ©sirà ©e Lorieux. Becquerel came from a lineage of distinguished scientists, and his family contributed greatly to the French scientific community over four generations. His father is credited with discovering the photovoltaic effect- a phenomenon, important for the operation of solar cells, wherein a material produces electrical current and voltage when exposed to light. His grandfather Antoine Cà ©sar Becquerel was a well-regarded scientist in the area of electrochemistry, a field important for developing batteries that studies the relationships between electricity and chemical reactions. Becquerel’s son, Jean Becquerel, also made strides in studying crystals, particularly their magnetic and optical properties. Honors and Awards For his scientific work, Becquerel earned several awards throughout his lifetime, including the Rumford Medal in 1900 and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, which he shared with Marie and Pierre Curie. Several discoveries have also been named after Becquerel, including a crater called â€Å"Becquerel† both on the moon and Mars and a mineral called â€Å"Becquerelite† which contains a high percentage of uranium by weight. The SI unit for radioactivity, which measures the amount of ionizing radiation that is released when an atom experiences radioactive decay, is also named after Becquerel: its called the becquerel (or Bq). Death and Legacy Becquerel died from a heart attack on August 25, 1908, in Le Croisic, France. He was 55 years old. Today, Becquerel is remembered for discovering radioactivity, a process by which an unstable nucleus emits particles. Although radioactivity can be harmful to humans, it has many applications around the world, including the sterilization of food and medical instruments and the generation of electricity. Sources Allisy, A. â€Å"Henri Becquerel: The Discovery of Radioactivity.† Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol. 68, no. 1/2, 1 Nov. 1996, pp. 3–10.Badash, Lawrence. â€Å"Henri Becquerel.† Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Inc., 21 Aug. 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Henri-Becquerel.â€Å"Becquerel (Bq).† United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission - Protecting People and the Environment, www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/becquerel-bq.html.â€Å"Henri Becquerel – Biographical.† The Nobel Prize, www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/becquerel/biographical/.Sekiya, Masaru, and Michio Yamasaki. â€Å"Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852–1908): A Scientist Who Endeavored to Discover Natural Radioactivity.† Radiological Physics and Technology, vol. 8, no. 1, 16 Oct. 2014, pp. 1–3., doi:10.1007/s12194-014-0292-z.â€Å"Uses of Radioactivity/Radiation.† NDT Resource Center; www.nde-ed.org/EducationResou rces/HighSchool/Radiography/usesradioactivity.htm