James Baldwin Now - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814756182 ISBN 13: 9780814756188

Publisher: NYU Press, 2000

Synopsis

One of the most prolific and influential African American writers, James Baldwin was for many a harbinger of hope, a man who traversed the genres of art-writing novels, essays, and poetry. James Baldwin Now takes advantage of the latest interdisciplinary work to understand the complexity of Baldwin's vision and contributions without needing to name him as exclusively gay, expatriate, black, or activist. It was, in fact, Baldwin who said, "it is quite impossible to write a worthwhile novel about a Jew or a Gentile or a Homosexual, for people refuse . . . to function in so neat and one-dimensional a fashion" McBride has gathered a unique group of new scholars to interrogate Baldwin's life, his presence, and his political thought and work. James Baldwin Now finally addresses the man who spoke, and continues to speak, so eloquently to crucial issues of the twentieth century.

About this title

Review

Dwight McBride, the editor of this diverse and challenging new collection of James Baldwin scholarship, reports that at least 15 dissertations on Baldwin have appeared since 1990, suggesting that a revival may be taking place. That this should occur now, in the heyday of cultural studies, and among younger scholars, is especially promising for Baldwin, who has suffered since the publication of his first novel in 1953 (Go Tell It on the Mountain) by being relegated to one or another critical category. McBride notes, "It is finally possible to understand Baldwin's vision of and for humanity in its complexity, locating him not as exclusively gay, black, expatriate, activist, or the like but as an intricately negotiated amalgam of all of those things, which had to be constantly tailored to fit the circumstances in which he was compelled to articulate himself." Among the best essays here are the reception studies, William Spurlin's "Culture, Rhetoric, and Queer Identity: James Baldwin and the Identity Politics of Race and Sexuality," which focuses on Baldwin's position in the Black Power movement, including Eldridge Cleavor's famously homophobic reading of Baldwin, and Roderick A. Ferguson's elegantly readable "The Parvenu Baldwin and the Other Side of Redemption: Modernity, Race, Sexuality and the Cold War." --Regina Marler

About the Author

Dwight A. McBride is Daniel Hale Williams Professor of African American Studies, English, & Performance Studies at Northwestern University where he also serves as Dean of The Graduate School and Associate Provost for Graduate Education. He is the author of several groundbreaking works in African American Studies, including Impossible Witnesses and Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch.

About this edition

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0814756182
• ISBN 13: 9780814756188
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356
• Editor: McBride Dwight