Thank goodness for Dana Williams and the Toni Morrison Society

Have you ever noticed how rare it is for African American literary scholars to be included in discussions of national concern? And more, when and if you hear from those scholars, they are almost never situated at HBCUs or in other places where they work with large numbers of black students?

For those reasons, I was especially interested and proud last week to see Dana Williams on a few different news outlets. She was interviewed on MSNBC and Democracy Now, and she wrote an article "Virginia governor race highlights irony of banning 'Beloved' from schools" for NBC News.  

Williams was called on to respond to the controversy surrounding Toni Morrison's Beloved, which became a talking point in the governor's race in Virginia after the Republican candidate ran an ad that showed a parent trying to ban the novel because it allegedy gave her son nightmares. 

Last week in her appearances and in her article, Williams put Toni Morrison, her novels, and literary treatments of slavery into multiple contexts. She also pointed out "how petrified this nation is of its past, especially when that past challenges American myths of freedom and justice for all."

At one point, Williams notes that "There are some stories only fiction can tell." So often, historians, journalists, sociologists are called in to explain black experience in this country. But that statement from Williams seems to make the case that specialists in African American literary studies, for instance, might deserve a little more of our attention. 

Last week, in an article  for the Washington Post on Morrison's novel and this Virginia controversy, literary scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin noted that if Beloved "is 'obscene,' that is because the institution of slavery was obscene. The novel is about slavery — including, but not limited to, the sexual abuse that it encouraged and relied upon as a tool of power." 

News outlets have been reaching out to Williams in large part because she is the president of the Toni Morrison Society (TMS). In moments like these, thank goodness for the TMS. What if Carolyn Denard hadn't had the foresight in 1993, to establish an organization to bring people together to illuminate the works of Toni Morrison? 

And, mmm mmm, mmm, thank goodness for Dana Williams. Can you imagine what would have happened if there was no adept, experienced black literary specialist like her to turn to on the matter of Beloved?

Related 

• Dana Williams shines light on editor Toni Morrison

• A Notebook on Toni Morrison

Colson Whitehead discusses Harlem Shuffle in St. Louis

October 28, Thursday evening, Left Bank Books hosted a conversation here in St. Louis with Colson Whitehead, who discussed his newest novel Harlem Shuffle (2021). I enjoyed the event. Whitehead was, as always, humorous and thoughtful.

I first started reading his work back in 2000, when the paperback edition of The Intuitionist (1999) was published. From that moment on, I decided I'd never be late on a Whitehead book again, reading each one of his books as soon as it was released. And he's constantly given us -- his readers -- fresh materials, putting out a new book every couple of years for twenty years now. 

At one point,Whitehead said, "I had to write all those books to figure out how to write this sentence now." He was making the point that he had become a better writer based on producing book after book after book.  

He spent much of the time talking about Harlem Shuffle. He opened by reading a short excerpt from the novel. Like his previous books The Underground Railroad (2016) and The Nickel Boys (2019), his current book has been widely reviewed and praised.   

Whitehead speaks in precise ways about his approach to producing novels. He devotes extensive time to outlining, and then, he spends 12 to 14 months producing the manuscript. His ideas for the work often begin with questions about a topic, then characters, and then time periods. He purposely pushes himself to try new things, hence his creative body of work.

I've studied Whitehead's work and read interviews he's done for so long now, I was familiar with several of his responses. However, I had not previously heard him mention how much he was influenced by comedians George Carlin and Richard Pryor. He noted that when he was young, and his family got HBO (which gave them an excuse not to talk to each other), they would watch Carlin and Pryor.

I felt like I received an added piece of a puzzle when Whitehead mentioned that Carlin's cririques of American society were important to his outlook. Of course! Whitehead infuses his novels with all kinds of commentary on American life. The amusement and jokes throughout his novels might distract folks from the critiques.   

Pryor, noted Whitehead, had this approach of presenting something funny, then something horrible, and then something funny. You can see that approach in the different kinds of books that Whitehead writes. Zone One (2011) and The Noble Hustle (2014) are filled with jokes. The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys present troubling histories. And now Harlem Shuffle has all these fun and funny moments.  

Early in the presentation, Whitehead had said humor is an important part of his project. Listening to him later discuss those comedians offered background on his approaches to humor. 

Whitehead said that he had finished his novel the week that George Floyd was killed. So even though a riot and unrest appear in the book, he was not directly responding to the event. In the United States, another brutal indicent against black people is just around the corner. To write about it today is to echo the past and predict a future.  

Whitehead's books, and more broadly, some of his artistic ideas, have been a central force in my African American literature classes at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE). For one, his interest in incoporating pop culture into literary works is a topic that I frequently discuss. In addition, I share his inclination to consider the intersections of race, technology, and history.   

Before the question and answer period, Whitehead closed the event by reading a short excerpt from his next novel, a follow-up to Harlem Shuffle. While sequels are quite common, it represents a unique turn for Whitehead.  

Like I said, I enjoyed the event, as I did Whitehead's last visit to St. Louis in 2016, when he discussed The Underground Railroad. This time, the audience was smaller, but I think I preferred the format this time, where instead of a reading and then Q & A, Whitehead was in conversation with G'Ra Asim. The conversation format allowed for more time for the author to really discuss his ideas, motivations, and influences with respect to his works.  

Related: 

• A Notebook on the work of Colson Whitehead

Haley Reading (Group A2) Nafissa Thompson-Spires's "Fatima, the Biloquist"

[Haley Reading groups Fall 2021]

By Lakenzie Walls and Howard Rambsy II

In Nafissa Thompson-Spires's story “Fatima, the Biloquist: A Transformation Story” a teenage Black girl questions her identity and sense of self while attending a predominantly white school. She struggles to feel black enough and befriends Violet, a black teenager with albinism. Violet provides Fatima with guidance—teaching her different connotations and phrases with secondary Black-inflected meanings.

In one example, Fatima considers the racial implications associated with her brown top lip and pink lower one. At school around white people, “she talked with her pink lip, and with Violet, she talked with her brown one” (75). Fatima’s observations about navigating different environments as a Black girl persist throughout the story.

Identify what you thought of as an important scene from the story about the challenges awaiting a Black girl who “felt ready to become black, full black,” which is to say, a Black girl who embraces aspects of African American culture in more deliberate ways. How did that scene confirm or alter your views concerning what a Black girl might face? Please provide the page number for the scene you identify.

Haley Scholars (Group B) Rion Amilcar Scott's “A Loudness of Screechers”

[Haley Reading groups Fall 2021]

Rion Amilcar Scott's "A Loudness of Screechers" is a supernatural or magical tale that has a large group of menacing birds hovering over a town before then taking a human sacrifice. The story is told from the perspective of a young girl in the town. 

In one interview, Scott explained his reasons for presenting magical elements in his stories. For one, he said it's fun. And second, he said that doing so "allows me to dramatize some ideas that I can’t dramatize otherwise."

Answer just one of the following questions.

What's one notable idea that you thought the story dramatized or highlighted that was possible because of the uses of magical elements? 

Or

What's one way you think that composing this story with its magical elements would have been fun for a writer? 

Haley Scholars (Group A1) Rion Amilcar Scott's “A Loudness of Screechers”

[Haley Reading groups Fall 2021]

Rion Amilcar Scott's "A Loudness of Screechers" is a supernatural or magical tale that has a large group of menacing birds hovering over a town before then taking a human sacrifice. The story is told from the perspective of a young girl in the town. 

In one interview, Scott explained his reasons for presenting magical elements in his stories. For one, he said it's fun. And second, he said, that doing so "allows me to dramatize some ideas that I can’t dramatize otherwise."

How did you respond to the use of magical elements in "A Loudness of Screechers"? That is, was it a fun, unsettling, confusing, intriguing, unusual, or familiar reading exeprience for you? Or, was it something else? In brief, state why you think you had that response to the story.

A checklist of paintings by Kadir Nelson

Here's a roundup of links to several images by Kadir Nelson.

Art Connoiseurs 

• Tulsa (2021)

• Homecoming (2021)

• Black Boy Joy (2021)

• Thespis of St. Matthews: Viola Davis (2021)

• Bad Boy Joy (2020)

• Sweet Liberty (2020)

• Blackish Tea (2020)

• The Centennial (2020)

• Distant Summer (2020)

• American Uprising (2020)

• Say Their Names (2020)

• Flight of the Clotilda (2020)

• Art Connoisseurs (2019)

• Leonardo David (2019)

• Heat Wave (2019)

• Scootr'e (2019)

• Marvin Gaye (2001)

• Spring Blossoms (2019)

• Marvin Gaye (2019)

• Savoring Summer (2018)

A checklist of paintings by Amy Sherald

I've been covering artwork by Amy Sherald over the last few years with students. Here's a checklist of some of her paintings.

A Clear Unspoken Granted Magic

• Hangman (2007) 

• Pony Boy (2008)

• Puppetmaster (2008) 

• The fairest of the not so fair (2008) 

• Well prepared and maladjusted (2008)

• They call me Redbone, but I’d rather be strawberry shortcake (2009) 

• Maybe if I wore a mask (2009) 

• The rabbit in the hat (2009) 

• It Made Sense…Mostly In Her Mind (2011) 

• Guide me no more (2011) 

A checklist of paintings by Kehinde Wiley

I've been covering artwork by Kehinde Wiley over the last few years with students. Here's a checklist of some of his paintings.

• Willem van Heythuysen (2005) 

• Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps (2005)

• Portrait of a Venetian Ambassador, Aged 59, II (2006)

• Portrait of andries Stilte (2006)

• Colonel Platoff on his Charger (2007)

Portrait of a Venetian Ambassador, Aged 59, II

• Officer of the Hussars (2007)

• Three wise men greeting entry into Lagos (2008) 

• Morpheus (2008)

• Phillip II (2008)

• Triple Portrait of Charles II (2008)

• Dogon Couple (Detail) (2008)

• Antoine, 'The Grand Batard de Bourgogne' (2011)

• Treisha Lowe (2012) 

• Shantavia Beale II (2012) 

• The Two Sisters (2012) 

• Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (2012) 

• Juliette Recamier (2012) 

• Mrs. Siddons (2012)

• Naomi and Her Daughters (2013) 

• Jean De Carondelet III (2013)

• Portrait of Mary Hill Lady Killgrew (2013) 

• Anthony of Padua (2013) 

• Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness (2013) 

• Clevins Browne (2013)

• Saint Clement (2013)

• John, 1st Baron Byron (2013)

• Equestrian portrait of Margarita of Austria, wife of Philip III (2015) 

• Equestrian Portrait of Isabella of Bourbon (2016) 

• Tomb of Pope Alexander VII Study I (2016)

• Ship of Fools (2017) 

• Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV (2017) 

• Jacob de Graeff (2018) 

• Portrait of Barack Obama (2018)

• Portrait of Moerai Matuanui (2019)

• Portrait of Savannah Essah (2020)

Related:

• A checklist of paintings by Amy Sherald 

Joycelyn Moody's A History of African American Autobiography

I'm a contributor to A History of African American Autobiography (2021) edited by Joycelyn Moody. I received my complimentary copy yesterday.

Moody has been doing research on African American autobiographical works for some time. She and I first met, let's see, on October 1, 2004, at the University of Kansas at a lecture by Jean Fagan Yellin focusing on Harriet Jacobs. At that point, Moody was already decades deep into her study of autobiography, especially black autobiography. So this book was a long time coming, and just as important, it continues her considerations of what is meant by autobiography and "life writing," a term scholars have increasingly used over the years.

The collection was published by Cambridge University Press. It includes contributions from a range of scholars: Rhondda Robinson Thomas, Eric D. Lamore, William L. Andrews, John Ernest, Andreá N. Williams, Lois Brown, Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, Nicole Aljoe, Brian J. Norman, Moya Bailey and Whitney Peoples, Cedrick May, Barbara McCaskill, James Smethurst, Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman, Anthony Foy, Caroline Streeter, Tara D. Green, Michael Chaney, Giselle Anatol, Jonda McNair, Frances Smith Foster. You can view the table of contents here.

Moody provides the introduction, "Creafting a Credible Black Self in African American Life Writing," which offers context concerning the histories of memoir and autobiography. Moody writes that:

As the most expansive literary canon of African diasporic peoples, African American autobiographical writing consists of texts that range from the talking books, freedom petitions, and captivity narratives of the 1600s to today’s digital and virtual forms Black people adapt to construct selfhood to tell their lives.

The collection opens with "A Chronology of African American Life Writing," from 1760 to 2020. In addition to identifying several classic autobiographies, the chronology includes volumes of poetry and noted biographies.

My contribution, "Black Lives in Contemporary Persona Poems" discusses volumes of poetry in the context of autobiographical impulses.

The Novel Generator Machine

The Novel Generator Machine provides users with opportunities to explore an extensive selection of novels by Black writers based on user preferences and interests. 

In October 2021, I worked with IRIS Center research professor Meg Smith to launch this phase of the machine, as part of the Black Literature Network. 

Back in April 2012, I worked with a programmer and former student Tristan Denyer to launch my Novel Category Machine, a web-based project that could arrange a select number of novels based on a few different configurations. The Category Machine formed the basis of the Generator Machine. 

Related:

• The Black Literature Network

Haley Reading (Group A2) Nafissa Thompson-Spires's "Heads of the Colored People"

[Haley Reading groups Fall 2021]

By Lakenzie Walls and Howard Rambsy II

In Nafissa Thompson-Spires's story “Heads of the Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology," we are introduced to four characters whose individual stories intersect on a day that two of them are shot by police. The narrator takes the time to give us brief, in-depth takes on the movements, choices, and thoughts of four characters.

One of the characters, a young Black man named Riley wears colored contacts and bleached hair, and, as we're informed by the narrator, "this wasn’t any kind of self-hatred thing” (1). Another Black man, referred to as Brother Man, "was burly but not violent and rather liked to regard himself as an intellectual in a misleading package" (4). 

Then, there is a visual artist Kevan, who is hundreds of miles away from the main action in the story, but would later draw images of Black men, like Riley and Brother Man, killed by police (8). Another is Paris Larkin, who longs for a superpower to "make herself visible" (10). Like her boyfriend Riley, she is devoted to cosplay. 

What does this "black network narrative" lead you to consider about Thompson-Spires as a storyteller? That is to say, what's one thought you had about the creativity, style of writing, organizational approach, or artistic capabilities of a writer who composes a story that connects a variety of African American characters?

Haley Scholars (Group B) Rion Amilcar Scott's “A Rare and Powerful Employee”

[Haley Reading groups Fall 2021]

Rion Amilcar Scott's “A Rare and Powerful Employee” focuses on the first-person perspective of a man who has the job of motivating and supporting women, but he secretly gets over on them. The story is fictional but disturbing because of how real it is that a powerful figure could take advantage of people the way this unnamed character does. 

At one point, the narrator imagines what will happen yet again after he gives a speech: "A line of women will position themselves to talk to me, saying things like my speech restored their faith in men or that my writings are so profound and I nod and say something that seems thoughtful, but is really canned and trite" (73).

What captured your attention more -- the deceptive man at the center of the story or the idea of those vulnerable women? Why?

Haley Scholars (Group A1) Rion Amilcar Scott's “A Rare and Powerful Employee”

[Haley Reading groups Fall 2021]

Rion Amilcar Scott's “A Rare and Powerful Employee” focuses on the first-person perspective of a man who has the job of motivating and supporting women, but he secretly gets over on them. The story is fictional but disturbing because of how real it is that a powerful figure could take advantage of people the way this unnamed character does. 

At one point, the narrator imagines what will happen yet again after he gives a speech: "A line of women will position themselves to talk to me, saying things like my speech restored their faith in men or that my writings are so profound and I nod and say something that seems thoughtful, but is really canned and trite" (73).

What captured your attention more -- the deceptive man at the center of the story or the idea of those vulnerable women? Why?

Nathaniel Mackey's Breath and Precarity

I recently read Nathaniel Mackey's Breath and Precarity (2021), which was his keynote lecture for a conference at Columbia University's "Vision Festival" in July 6, 2015. The New York Times covered the event. Mackey's keynote, which he delivered in a few other forms over the years, is now availabe as a short book from the press Three Count Pour. The book also includes his poem "The Overghost Ourkestra's Next" about an invented band. 

Mackey had prepared the lecture for the Vision Festival but also for the first Robert Creeley Lecture in Poetry and Poetics at SUNY Buffalo, which he delivered on April 8, 2016. 

There's a video from November 9, 2016, where Mackey delivered his "Breath and Precairty" lecture for the Leslie Scalapino Lecture in Innovative Poetics at the English Department at UC Berkeley. You can hear Mackey delivering the lecture in November 2016 at Reed College, which Barry Johnson wrote about in a piece, "Nathaniel Mackey: Black breath matters." 

Mackey's lecture or a version of it also appears as "Breath and Precarity: The Inaugural Robert Creeley Lecture in Poetry and Poetics" in Poetics and Precarity (2018) edited Myung Mi Kim and Cristanne Miller. I enjoyed reading the piece in the book, Breath and Precarity, and then tracing the different places where Mackey presented the piece.

In his lecture, Mackey charts some of the conversations about breah and breathing that emerged in discussions of poetry and poetics during the 1950s and 1960s. Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and others, notes Mackey, had engaged in conversations about the meaning of breath and what it might mean for the production of poetry. 

Mackey expands and notes how and why breathing is a crucial idea in jazz, especially among wind instrumentalists like saxophonists. He provides reflections on and descriptions of various jazz pieces like Sonny Rollins's "On Green Dolphin Street," Ben Webster's "Tenderly," Roscoe Mitchell's "The Flow Things, No. 1," and Archie Shepp's "The Magic of Ju-Ju." I was reading his comments, pausing and going to listen to the songs he mentioned. It was a great time. 

Eventually, Mackey mentions the killing of Eric Garner and his last words, "I can't breathe." So we see a progression from poetry to jazz to some larger ongoing concerns about what breathing and struggles to breathe mean for African Americans and how it's not just black lives, but also black breath that matters. It's all precarious.  

Variety of collaborators will work on HBW grant funded by Mellon Foundation

The History of Black Writing (HBW) recently received $800,000 in funding from the Andrew W. Mellon  Foundation to implement a three-year grant focusing on African American literature. Scholars of African American literature, computer scientists, Digital Humanities scholars, illustrators, graphic designers, voice actors, and sound engineers will contribute to the project. 

Maryemma Graham, founder of HBW, will bring her decades-long expertise working on various African American literature projects as well as her experiences working with hundreds of schoolteachers, fellow scholars, and students. 

My brother Kenton Rambsy, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, and I have been working on projects combining literary studies and digital humanities for years now, and this HBW Mellon grant gives us a special opportunity to expand the reach of our efforts. Drew Davidson, a professor of computer science at the University Kansas and a contributor to the Network, will work with us on design and operational features of the digital resources that we are building. 

Several people at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) will also contribute to the project. For one, members of our African American Literary Studies unit will provide guidance on content for the overall project. We collectively cover a wide range of topics in black literature and literary history, and we are excited to turn our attention to this project. 

Margaret Smith, research professor for our IRIS Center, who has been instrumental for several web-based projects, will lead the way on designing various foundational online elements for the project. The co-founders/directors of IRIS Kristine Hildebrandt and Jessica DeSpain will provide ideas and assistance as well. 

Beyond those mentioned, we will recruit dozens of others to assist in building this project -- The Black Literature Network. 

Related:

• HBW receives $800k Mellon Foundation Grant to Illuminate African American Novels

HBW receives $800k Mellon Foundation Grant to Illuminate African American Novels

The Mellon Foundation just awarded the Project on the History of Black Writing (HBW) funding for a three-year, $800,000 grant to implement a project showcasing black literary art in new and exciting ways. The project promises to enrich the study of African American literature.

The Black Literature Network will include four interrelated projects -- a podcast series, a book recommendation resource, a data visualization gallery, and a keyword guide -- all designed to illuminate aspects of African American novels. The Network will also include a program for undergraduates and graduate students to learn more about African American literary studies using technology.  

Among other outcomes, the varied portals for the Network will address several basic yet enduring questions: What's a good African American novel to read? What's the story behind the publication of some famous novels by black writers? What's the relationship of one novel to dozens of other novels? What key terms assist us in understanding the works of black writers?

Founded by Maryemma Graham in 1983, HBW has facilitated dozens of black literature projects for 

students, teachers, scholars, and general audiences. This recent Mellon grant represents an especially important endeavor as a variety of collaborators -- literary scholars, technology specialists, illustrators, voice actors, and sound engineers -- will work together to highlight the histories of African American novels and novelists.

Related 

• Variety of collaborators will work on HBW grant funded by Mellon Foundation   

Blogging about poetry in September 2021

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry]

• September 1: Blogging about poetry in August 2021