I attended the interesting lecture “How did Hagar become black?” by Nyasia Junior who is a professor at Temple University. The lecture talked about Nyasha’s potential book that takes a different approach and discussion about the biblical Hagar character starting from the controversial debate about her color and race. Indeed, in this lecture and her book, Nyasia argues that there is not a single black Hagar tradition but rather there are two distinctive black Hagar figures. The first interpretation has reconstructed Hagar figure that alludes to biblical Hagar showing her “blackness” [1]. Secondly, there are others created a black women character that was named Hagar who bears little resemblances to the biblical figure.
The lecture starts by
…show more content…
That being said I agree with the approach that Nyasia takes. Her critical analysis using the described example showed me the importance of the name Hagar not only as a biblical figure but as African American Icon and a black woman figure. the allusion of the name Hagar does not always function as a biblical character but a biblical name. This means that there are two constructions of Hagar. The first one that has a connection to the biblical figure and the second one doesn’t have the association with the biblical character. This leads me to understand that Nyasia, although she focuses on the black characteristics of both Hagars, she was trying to show Hagar as a black figure which is not born due to her skin color but due to the social difficulties and the inequality that people were suffering, especially the African American community in America. Nyasia herself emphasized that her thesis does not focus on the race of the biblical Hagar rather than showing Hagar a social figure who become a mother of the black people and a biblical character that reflected the picture of people with social difficulties. Thus, Hagar became a shorthand phrase and it is not sufficient to argue that referencing the name Hagar leads to a connection with biblical