Fear and Anxiety in the Poetry of Women of Color

In this final thesis I am analyzing the motives of fear and anxiety in the poetry of women of color through the prism of anthropology of emotions, history of emotions of XX century and psychology. Based on the works of Frank Furedi “Culture of fear revisited: risk-taking and the morality of low expectation”, “The only thing we have to fear is the ‘culture of fear’ itself”, “Therapeutic culture: cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age” I have compiled a typology of fears. The typology is based on the different causes of these emotions (for example politics of fear’, ‘fear of crime’ and ‘fear of the future’ etc.), corrected for the temporary epoch of XX century in which they coexist, as well as through the works of Frank Furedi, in which fear itself and its causes are the main subjects of study. I am analyzing the piece of works written by Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Sonia Sanchez. In this transdisciplinary terms I am making literary historical analysis and review of poems of women of color to formulate the general description to their style of narrative and showing the motive of fear and anxiety. The purpose of the study is to study the nature of fears and anxieties as such, as well as in the context of the poetry of women of color of the second half of the twentieth century. It also raises the question of whether an interdisciplinary approach of research to study their poetry helps in this analysis, and whether it is effective.