comparison and contrast essay

This will be an analytical essay that proposes and defends a thesis based on a key theme in one of the following texts, or a comparison and contrast essay about a theme that connects two of the following texts: Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape (critical essays, interviews); Street Lit magazine (critical essays, interviews); Ghetto: Invention of a Place, History of an Idea (chapters 1-2); The Last Street Novel; Uptown Thief **Themes that you might consider but are not limited to: –Street lit’s exploration of masculinity– social enforcement thereof; Midnight and/or Raul as apotheosis; Omar Tyree meta-narrative; toxic masculinity. –Street lit’s depictions of women and girls– progressive vs. regressive visions; Sister Souljah meta-narrative; dynamic and problematic women (Marisol, Winter, Cynthia); –Street lit meta-narratives Sister Souljah in Coldest Winter Ever; Shareef Crawford in Last Street Novel; –Sex work– de Leon’s dialectic in Uptown Thief; de Leon interview. –Harlem/NYC– as home; as cultural nexus; as locus of danger; Spanish Harlem. –Mass incarceration– Coldest Winter Ever; Kristina Graaff interview –Sociological and cultural context of contemporary street lit: see critical essays, interviews w/ Thompson, Tyree, de Leon. *Use of secondary sources (critical essays and interviews from the street lit anthology and magazine) is encouraged. *Note that if you have already analyzed a text for the mid-term or presentation, you can only write about it again in comparison/contrast to one of the other texts that you have not written about, or a text that you introduce that is not part of the required reading curriculum. Length: 4-8 pages 12″, double-spaced, Times New Roman