Archive - History of Black Writing Blog

The
democratic spirit demands that all voices be heard and that all interests be
represented. ..

Once
in the 1970s when I was driving E. Ethelbert Miller and a lady whose work got
some attention in the early twentieth century to some event, the lady snidely
remarked that Margaret Walker was a one-poem poet. ..

This blog serves notice that many of my
friends and I are not losing our humanity. We are transforming our humanity. ..

Dr. Neal Lester, Foundation Professor of
English and Director, Project Humanities, at Arizona State University, will
provide the opening remarks for the September 7 forum...

This is an announcement. Time is not accidental. Dates are.
It is accidental that November 5, 2012 is the deadline for submissions
to PMLA on the general topic of
tragedy. ..

In a recent blog entry, literary critic Jerry Ward observed
that Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt is “a comic book.” Further, “One
senses the ghost of Henry James in the book’s machinery,” notes Ward, “although
its effect is pure George Bernard Shaw.” Yes, humor and satire are on display
in Apex, and really all of Whitehead’s works...

Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt (2006) is a comic book. The writer of comedy, Gilbert Highet said
with some authority in The Anatomy of
Satire (1962), “likes people, not in spite of their peculiarities, but
because of them” (155). Whitehead likes
people.Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt (2006) is a comic book. The writer of comedy, Gilbert Highet said
with some authority in The Anatomy of
Satire (1962), “likes people, not in spite of their peculiarities, but
because of them” (155). Whitehead likes
people.
In Apex
Hides the Hurt, he depicts what is ludicrous about how people do or do not
do things with words. Indeed, his novel
is proper and slightly British. One
senses the ghost of Henry James in the book’s machinery although its effect is
pure George Bernard Shaw. After all, the
novel is primarily about the deception of words.

The plot is about nothing more than the
renaming of a town, and the protagonist is merely an ad guy, a nomenclature
consultant. Everything is so comme il faut about the novel that a
reader only grabs its American humor when she or he is shocked into recognizing
Whitehead’s target is the pervasive dismissiveness of American life, liberty
and pursuit of money.
Words are cheap. You can buy a whole dictionary of words for
less than the cost of a hamburger at an up-scale restaurant. Deeds are expensive.
Put Ralph Ellison in conversation with
Colson Whitehead. Ellison mined Homeric
epic, the picaresque novel and the Bildungsroman, Herman Melville’s power of
whiteness, and African American folk wisdom to work up effects in Invisible Man. Ellison had the backing of Constance Rourke’s
American Humor. Colson has the backing of J. L. Austin’s
magnum opus How to Do Things with Words. He exploits the deadpan realism of Gustave
Flaubert, Herman Melville’s power of blackness, Ishmael Reed’s critiques of the
exceptional American mind, and Ellison’s secret of how to appeal to cultivated
sensibilities. Whitehead and Ellison
diverge nicely...

Today would have been James Baldwin’s 88th
birthday, and we should celebrate the fact with sweetness and light and the
gentle moral irony that informed Baldwin’s writings. I am feeling anything but genteel
today. My thoughts are informed by David
Walker rather than Baldwin, by indignation rather than civility. ..

By
listing 88 books published between 1751 and 2002, the Library of Congress seeks
to begin “a national conversation on books written by Americans that have
influenced our lives whether they appear on this initial list or not.” . ..

To address the growing interest in African American
literature and culture at HuaZhong Normal University (Wuhan) and other
institutions in China, I have given lectures there since 2009. Chinese auditors, however astute and savvy
they are, may be easily confused by the literary critical games played in the
West. ..