Our group decided to annotate Cane by focusing on pop culture references during that time period as well as some contemporary references. Our choices for annotation platform were Hypothes.is or Manifold, and since we wanted to include media, our first instinct was to use Manifold. While Lisa was researching Manifold, I wanted to collect some resources for my group on music and art created during that decade. I wanted to focus specifically on African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance, since Toomer was an important figure in this movement. I had a very brief introduction to the Harlem Renaissance and knew of some artists like Aaron Douglas, but wanted to expand my knowledge. I found two articles through the GC Library by Barlow and Francis that were helpful to my group. Barlow’s Literary Ethnomusicology and the Soundscape of Jean Toomer’s Cane explores the musical roots in Cane and Francis’ Painting the South with a Northern Eye provides a background of many northern artists who went back “home” to the South to find inspiration and paint everyday life of African Americans. I found several works by Aaron Douglas and was successful in inserting them into Hypothes.is in case we decided to drop Manifold.
The team moved away from Manifold due to our time limits as well as the difficulty in inserting media. Lisa uploaded Cane to Manifold and while it looked clean and professional, it would have taken too much time to rework our contributions into an accepted format and we would not be able to edit directly on Manfiold. After we decided on Hypothes.is, we discussed using a cleaner version of Cane. I had some experience creating a site on the Academic Commons, so I created one for the group and uploaded Cane to a new page. I shared the link with the group and we began our annotations, each choosing what part spoke to us.
Re-reading Cane after looking through art and media reinforced the importance of music and spirituals in the text. In our class annotations, I focused more on the text and imagery and what I knew of the South during the early twentieth century. A Portrait in Georgia still stands out to me. I remember commenting on how lyrical some of the text was, but I didn’t realize how much until my group began annotating. I added a few random annotations to other group member’s work, including Becky, but most of the annotations were in Cotton Song and Box Seat. I really wanted to connect the lyrical part of the text to art and actual spirituals. Aaron Douglas was an inspiration for our group, but his pieces from James Weldon Johnson’s work (most notably Judgement Day) had to be included in Cane. The Art Deco style and his reimagining of spirituals align with Toomer’s writing. I also couldn’t help but include Paul Robeson’s rendition of Go Down Moses (let My People Go). I get chills every time I hear it, and encourage others to listen and learn more about Robeson.
Overall I enjoyed my introduction to Cane and Hypothes.is. Hypothes.is was very easy to learn and use, especially considering our time constraints and that we are remote learning. It was very easy to embed an image, video, or link and I like the addition of Public Note. That is a great way to share recommended readings and other information to your private group or the public.
