Houston A. Baker
Autor(a) de Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance
About the Author
Houston Baker is one of the most persistent voices in African American literary criticism, one that has helped to establish a tradition in black literature from slave narratives and spirituals to blues and modern African American writing. He is a frequent contributor to literary journals, author mostrar mais and editor of numerous books, and a leading mover in the diversification of American literature. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
Séries
Obras de Houston A. Baker
Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era (1813) 27 cópias
Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing (Black Literature and Culture) (1991) 20 cópias
Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing (Black Literature and Culture) 1 exemplar(es)
Critical Memory: Public Spheres, African American Writing, and Black Fathers and Sons in America (Georgia Southern… (2001) 1 exemplar(es)
Three American Literatures: Essays in Chicano, Native American and Asian American Literature for Teachers of American… (1982) 1 exemplar(es)
American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography Volume 77 #4 December 2005 1 exemplar(es)
Spirit run : poems 1 exemplar(es)
Associated Works
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) — Editor, algumas edições — 9,241 cópias
In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry (1656) — Contribuinte — 100 cópias
Bearing Witness: Selections from African-American Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (1991) — Contribuinte — 69 cópias
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Nome de batismo
- Baker, Houston Alfred, Jr.
- Data de nascimento
- 1943-03-22
- Sexo
- male
- Nacionalidade
- USA
- Local de nascimento
- Louisville, Kentucky, USA
- Ocupação
- scholar of African American literature
university professor - Organizações
- Vanderbilt University
Membros
Resenhas
Prêmios
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 25
- Also by
- 6
- Membros
- 456
- Popularidade
- #53,831
- Avaliação
- 4.0
- Resenhas
- 3
- ISBNs
- 42
I wanted this book because I cannot get into the mindset of American Blacks, apart from those in my limited geographic circle, and this looked like the way to go. “In the 60s, a more assertive black replaced the conciliatory negro, and fifty years later, black intellectuals are pondering post black” - is the intriguing starting point. The book is a collection of essays by mostly black intellectuals ruminating mostly on Touré and his Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?. They tear him limb from limb, dissecting his ideas, methods, language and even his tweets. He makes a good whipping post for ideas contrary. It is also a weakness because there is far more to being black than Touré, and I would have thought there would be as least as much criticism of the first black president, who only gets his in the last essay and the conclusion. Another weakness is that the essays only represent highly intellectual, academic discourse, often very personal. There are a lot of five dollar words, obscure, unexplained references and a lot of its own prejudice, but that is a vital part of the story.
By far the best essay is The World is a Ghetto by Patrice Rankine. Using Holland, Michigan as its starting point, it traces racism’s unending presence through all kinds of direct experience, references to other books and quotations, through hip-hop and The Invisible Man, and to Jamaica and Brazil. It is the most readable and accessible, and deserves reprinting elsewhere. Rankine’s scope spans far more than the other authors, while evoking far more imagery, detail, empathy and disappointment. He writes with style and verve. He scores points by getting under your skin rather than pointing a finger in your face.
For reasons unknown to me, I find I have reviewed four such books in the past year. They cover Asian racism in the excellent Yellow Peril!, progress among elite women in The XX Factor, the unending search to define Canadian in Reclaiming Canadian Bodies, and now The Trouble With Post Blackness. Together, they reinforce the idea that all races, creeds, sexes and economic classes discriminate, including (if not especially) through institutional violence, both literal and figurative. It is all ignorant, cruel and counterproductive, but also apparently innate, ingrained and enduring. And while American blacks torture themselves over their ancestry as slaves (completely ignoring it while vacationing at all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica and Ghana), the UN says there are now 26 million slaves in the world, and number increases annually.
“The world is a ghetto. Racial constructions regarding what blackness is and is not, and what whiteness is and is not, can be constricting and, in fact, often constitute racism itself.” –Patrice Rankine
David Wineberg… (mais)