Race, Space, and American Identity in the 20th and 21st Centuries

This portfolio project synthesizes three final papers in the Humanities Masters program that share themes of race, space, and American Identity, arguing that a true and inclusive understanding of the nation requires the recognition of African American identity as centreal to its formation. Through critical analyses of Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series, James Baldwin's existential thought, and the spatial history of Baltimore, the project demonstrates how African American cultural production and lived experience contest dominant national narratives. Drawing on historiography, spatial theory, literary analysis, and exploration of narrative authority, the thesis asserts that American identity remains a fundamentally contested and imagined construct--one that must reckon with its exclusions to become whole.