Cultural Front: May 2023

I was flattered (and excited) when Adam Bradley quoted me his article “The New Black Canon,” published in the New York Times on March 16. Earlier this year, we had a conversation about the study of Black books where I said, “The act of recovery means something different now … We don’t have to go deep into archives to find undervalued Black authors.”

My comments stemmed from my engagements with data-driven research over the last several years. I was drawing from Kim Gallon’s concept of a “technology of recovery,” or efforts to use digital platforms and tools to, in this case, raise awareness about Black novels. With the growing body of information about Black books available to us, we should consider how that data can be used to make connections between online reading audiences and Black books.

I see data storytelling as one possible way by which literary scholars might pursue recovery work in the early half of the 21st century. My older brother Howard Rambsy II and I created a dataset comprised of 1,200 Black novels. The dataset presents books based on various categories (year of publication, decade of publication, ratings on Goodreads). We used this dataset to create a series of visualizations focusing on Black novels.

• A visualization, in scrollytelling format, that highlights findings from a dataset of 1,200 novels by black writers

• A timeline of the 1,200 novels that includes Goodreads ratings.

• An interactive visualization that filters based on gender, reading level, and publication decade.

Digital tools create opportunities for us to highlight information about dozens, even hundreds of novels at a time. A macro view of 1,200 books by black writers constitutes novel possibilities in literary studies.

Online users – scholarly and general readers alike – might use these interactive digital resources to explore information about hundreds of books in a single setting. For these reasons, I see data storytelling and visualizations as vital for engaging African American literary studies.

Sunday, May 21, 2023

More on African American Poetry during the 1980s

I was recently thinking about one of my entries, "What happened with African American poetry from 1977-1987?" from June 2012. Back then, I was wondering why we rarely hear about developments in poetry during that period in comparison to the Black Arts era of the 1960s and 1970s.

I produced a list of volumes by black poets published during the 1980s. Some of the names: Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton, and Nikki Giovanni, among others, are familiar. But, we don't hear that much about that time period in literary history.

When I say that though, I'm likely comparing things to the standards of Black Arts. We have a really large body of scholarly works on that era as well as one the Harlem Renaissance. Scholars just don't produce much on black poetry from the 1980s and various other decades during the 20th century.

It's also true that scholars of African American literature have produced more extensive work on novels, autobiography, and nonfiction. But not so on poetry, especially poetry outside of Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts discourses.

There was a decline in the number of anthologies published during the 1980s in comparison to the 1970s, where there was an explosion of collections. Those anthologies ensured that poems and poets reached a wider readership than individual volumes, which have limited reached.

I haven't pulled all the pieces together yet, but I think the decline in anthologies and other modes of production associated with the arts were linked to issues connected to Reaganomics, which is to say several economic policies instituted by the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

There was no big unifying idea with poetry and African American literature during the 1980s either, nothing like a "Black Arts Movement" or a "New Negro Movement." Without those kinds of things, it becomes less likely that folks will take notice and decide to produce extensive the era. That's not to say poets of that time period didn't succeed. Several of them did. We just don't have a strong paper trail.

Volumes by black poets, 1980 - 1989

What follows is an incomplete list of volumes by black poets published between 1980 - 1989.

1980: The Yellow House on the Corner by Rita Dove

1980: Passion by June Jordan

1980: Two-Headed Woman by Lucille Clifton

1982: New Music - New Poetry (album) by Amiri Baraka with David Murray And Steve McCall

1982: The Mud Actor by Cyrus Cassells

1982: The Blues Don't Change: New and Selected Poems by Al Young

1982: Poems of Love and Understanding by Lenard D. Moore

1982: There It Is (album) by Jayne Cortez

1982: Chosen Poems: Old and New by Audre Lorde

1982: Season of Hunger/Cry of Rain: Poems 1975-1980 by E. Ethelbert Miller

1982: The Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go by Sterling Plumpp

1982: Firespitter by Jayne Cortez

1983: Museum by Rita Dove

1983: Those Who Ride The Night Winds by Nikki Giovanni

1983: Imagoes by Wanda Coleman

1984: Across the Mutual Landscape by Christopher Gilbert

1984: Homegirls & Handgrenades by Sonia Sanchez

1984: Copacetic by Yusef Komunyakaa

1984: Skulls Along the River by Quincy Troupe

A Notebook on Howard French's Born in Blackness

I view Howard French's Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (2021), as an important, landmark work. I've produced a few entries on the book.

Entries

May 19: Preliminary impressions of Born in Blackness

May 19: Silencing the Past and Born in Blackness

May 19: Coverage of Born in Blackness

Preliminary impressions of Born in Blackness

Sadness. Pride. Anger. Confusion. Surprise. Gratitude. Disdain. Frustration. Dread. Admiration.

Look, I've been composing a list of the emotions, the recurring emotions that I'm experiencing as I listen to Howard French's powerful, meticulously researched book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (2021) ready by James Fouhey on Audible.

I'm really enjoying this book. I initially purchased the audio version, but became so intrigued by what I was learning that I decided to obtain a hard copy as well.

French's book wasn't readily on my radar. Given my work as a scholar of African American literature, I tend to look out and receive recommendations for works within my field. And when I'm looking to take a break, I rarely pick up history books. Whatever the case, I'm glad that I noticed a few reviews and decided to check it out.

Since I began listening, the revelations in Born in Blackness have been occupying my thinking.

French makes the argument that Africans, and especially the forced labor, forced migration, and additional forced labor were central to the production of modernity. Not just add-ons, not as minor contributors. No, we simply cannot conceive of major developments among European and American nations, historic trade routes, dietary practices, the formation of "the West," and so forth without the facilitation by Europeans, to apply French's words, "violent domination of Black African slave labor" (116).

Hearing and reading about the dreadful, massive toll of human suffering in this book is really difficult. Sure, we already know about enslavement, right? But French offers a sense of scale in detail, which is to say discusses the hundreds of captives here, the thousands of enslaved Africans there, and the millions of black people in bondage over here. By naming the islands, cities, states, countries, ships, and forts comprising those here, there, and over here locales, French gives a level of attention to what transpired that feels, I don't know, up close and personal.

I've been moving back and forth between my two versions of Born in Blackness -- listening to Fouhey relaying French's words and then reading the physical book, making notations and checking out the footnotes.

People routinely mentioned "books that changed" their life. It's too early for me to speak on that, but I can identify one important way that the audio version of French's book changed my behavior. I take daily walks around my neighborhood as I listen to books, and I began extending my journeys recently mainly because I wanted to take even more time listening to Born in Blackness.

And that brings me back to the emotions. When you hear about the the magnitude of pain and death associated with Africans and Indigenous people in the Americas, you are both sad and angry. Becoming aware of so many facts that were hidden in plain sight evoke surprise.

You get a sense of pride when you learn of African captives fighting valiantly against enormous odds. And there are even some moments of amusement, like learning that Africans were initially disinterested in the trade goods that Portugal wanted to offer.

Silencing the Past and Born in Blackness

In fall 1999, just as I was beginning graduate studies in literature, I stumbled onto Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995). The book sent my mind running in all kinds of directions and stayed with me over the years.

A few days ago, I began reading Howard French's Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (2021). Early on in the reading process, I began thinking of Silencing the Past. French invokes Trouillot's book in direct and indirect ways.

For one, French gives voice to many histories that have long been silenced. Most notably, he is addressing the centrality of Africans and forced African labor to modernity and the creation of things like "the New World" and "The West."

There are a couple of moments when French cites Trouillot. Memorably, Silencing the Past first made me aware that the scale of slavery in the Caribbean far surpassed bondage in the United States, pointing out that more black people were enslaved on the tiny island of Martinique, a country smaller than Long Island, than all of the US. French presents that same point and cites Trouillot.

French goes even further, though, by drawing on even more scholarship and offering in-depth discussions of the truly awful processes of sugar production for enslaved black people in Brazil and the Caribbean.

There's this moment when French is discussing the Haitian Revolution and the victories of the rebels against Britain in battle. "And yet the Black colony's name has never appeared on a regimental banner in remembrance of a major campaign or sacrifice," writes French, "marking yet another act of historical silencing in this symphony of erasure" (367). [Emphasis added.]

I've been reading French's book and thinking about how little I knew concerning details about Africa, the Caribbean, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. But I feel somewhat better as I consider my many intellectual travels along the road from Silencing the Past to Born in Blackness.

Coverage of Born in Blackness

Here's a round up coverage on Howard French's Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (2021). According to Anver Versi, French's book "deserves to be regarded among the pantheon of works that have changed the world."

2023

• May 14: How Africa's history shaped the modern world - Yinka Adegoke - Semafor

2022

• November 16: Where in the (Modern) World is Africa? - Tomi Onabanjo - Chicago Review of Books

• June 14: Howard French on "Born in Blackness" [audio] - The Portico Podcast

• June 10: 'Born in Blackness' is a compelling, unforgettable read - Laura Seay - Washington Post

• June 1: Born in Blackness - Alan Gibson - Socialist Worker

• May 30: How the West grew rich on gold and slavery - Anver Versi - New African Magazine

• Summer: Born in Blackness - John W. Mackey - Boston Univ. Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning

• April 2: Born in Blackness -- Shayera Dark

• March 23: Erasing Africa's role in the rise of the West - Lisa Godfrey - CBC

• March 23: Telling modern world history with Africa at the center [audio] - Kendra Hanna - KUOW

• February 21: Born in Blackness by Howard French - Stephen Williams - African Business

• January 29: How to Tell Africa’s History? - Randall Maurice Jelks - Los Angeles Review of Books

• January 28: Slavery and Capital at the Dawn of a New World - Wall Street Journal

• January 27: How Africa was central to the making of the modern world - Daniel Merino - The Conversation

• January: ‘Almost All Great Writing Comes from Disciplined and Ambitious Readers - The Republic

2021

• December 16: How Africa made the modern world - Dele Olojede - Financial Times

• November 25: Born in Blackness - ABC podcast [audio]

• November 12: A new book centers Africa in the expansive history of slavery - April Peavey - The World

• November 12: The Doorstep: Reversing Missed Opportunities in Africa [audio] - Carnegie Council

• October 26: Dehumanised in the age of discovery - Peter Frankopan - The Guardian

• October 17: The story of sugar: Black suffering, white windfall - Howard W. French - Los Angeles Times

• October 14: Africans and the creation of the modern world - Anakwa Dwamena - Africa is a Country

• October 14: A History of Modernity That Puts Africa at Center Stage - Nigel Cliff - New York Times

• September 15: A Conversation with Howard French [audio] - Trend Lines (WPR)

• September 15: Born in Blackness - Kirkus Reviews

• July 27: Born in Blackness - Publishers Weekly

• Coverage of books, authors & special topics

Monday, May 8, 2023

On the English major, death of humanities

Here's a roundup of articles on "the end of English major," which stirred up after an article by Nathan Heller in The New Yorker earlier this year.

2024

• Dec. 10: Reports of English literature’s death have been greatly exaggerated - Ben Wright - MSN

• Oct. 2: The Death of Education: In defense of the humanities - Evan Wang - Tufts Daily

• June 4: Don’t Major in English: And Other Bad Advice from the World - Jessica Wilson - Public Discourse

• April 1: As Many Mourn the ‘Death of the Humanities,’ Harvard Profs. Say It’s Not That Simple - Stella M. Nakada - The Harvard Crimson

• Jan. 24: Defunding liberal arts is dangerous for health care - Holly J. Humphrey - STAT

• Jan. 20: Literature Humanities and the Democratic Moral Imagination - Larry Jackson - Columbia College Today

• Jan. 4: Futures of Literary Criticism - Michael Meranze and Christopher Newfield - UC Press Blog

2023

• Nov. 3: Can Humanities Survive the Budget Cuts? - Anemona Hartocollis - New York Times

• May 20: College is remade as tech majors surge and humanities dwindle - Nick Anderson - Washington Post

• May 3: Where Did All The English Majors Go? - Rebecca Sparacio - Cornell Sun

• April 7: The end of the English major is just the tip of the iceberg - Sydney Emerson - Allegheny Campus

• April 2: Letter from an English Department on the Brink - Sarah Blackwood - The New York Review of Books

• April 1: The crisis in arts and humanities: Rhetoric or reality? - Nathan M. Greenfield - University World News

• March 31: As humanities lose numbers...Duke grapples with similar trends - Zoe Spicer - Duke Chronicle

• March 9: The English Major, After the End - Andrew Newman - Inside Higher Ed

• March 8: End of the English Major? Hardly! - CUNY Graduate Center

• March 8: Are the humanities at American universities in crisis? - David Herman - The Article

• March 1: Go ahead and major in English. You’ll be fine! - Matt Pearce - Los Angeles Times

• Feb. 28: Praise for Nathan Heller's "The End of the English Major" -- Odile Hobeika - Medium

• Feb. 27: The End of the English Major - Nathan Heller - The New Yorker

• Feb. 2: STEM who? The humanities mount a comeback - Jennifer A. Kingson - Axios

2022

• Dec. 1: Five Theses on the Humanities Crisis - Aden Barton - The Crimson

• Oct. 24: Where have all the English majors gone? - Los Angeles Times

• Summer: The State of the Humanities circa 2022 - Robert B. Townsend, Norman Bradburn - Daedalus

2021

• Nov. 30: Decline of the Humanities: Where Does It STEM From? - Ben Goldstein - The Cornell Diplomat

• Nov. 22: Number in the humanities drops - Jill Barshay - American Academy of the Arts & Sciences

2020

• Jan. 16: Can We Save Our Dying English Departments? -- The Imaginative Conservative

• Jan.: Endgame: Can literary studies survive? -- The Chronicle of Higher Education

2018

• Aug. 23: The Humanities Are in Crisis - Benjamin Schmidt - The Atlantic

2014

• Jan. 28: The Death of the Humanities - Victor Davis Hanson - Hoover Institution

• The Humanities Crisis Then and Now - Paul Jay

2010

• Oct. 28: "Crisis in the Humanities" Day at MLA - Marjorie Perloff - Stanford Humanities Today

2004

• Crisis in the Humanities - Marjorie Perloff

• Coverage of the Humanities conversation (2013)

• Coverage of 'the death of poetry' & 'too many poets' conversations

Saturday, May 6, 2023

The opening of Frederick Douglass's Narrative

"I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit." --From The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

Whiteboard animation by Sierra Taylor.

Related:

• A Notebook on Frederick Douglass

• Frederick Douglass and Literary Crossroads

A Pertinent Question by Frederick Douglass

"Is it not astonishing, that while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses and constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, and copper, silver and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, breeding sheep and cattle on the hillside; living, moving, acting, thinking, planning; living in families as husbands, wives, and children; and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for immortal life beyond the grave;—is it not astonishing, I say, that we are called upon to prove that we are men?"

Frederick Douglass's “A Pertinent Question” in The Freedmen's Book (1865) edited by Lydia Maria Child

Voiceover by Kassandra Timm

Whiteboard animation by Sierra Taylor

Related:

• A Notebook on Frederick Douglass

• Frederick Douglass and Literary Crossroads

When Eugene B. Redmond wondered about the meaning of a black poem

In the late 1960s, Eugen B. Redmond became preoccupied by a series of questions, "What’s a black poem? What is black poetry? What’s black about black poetry?" Those questions led to a poem followed by a play considering the subject of black poetry then an expanded essay, next a short manuscript, then a longer essay, and eventually a full-length book, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry, a Critical Study (1976).

Voiceover by Kassandra Timm

Whiteboard animation by Sierra Taylor

Sierra Taylor on language skills

Some years ago, I did an interview with Sierra Taylor, and I asked her to introduce herself in the four languages she speaks. Later, she added audio discussing careers with language. Then, she produced a whiteboard animation based on the recordings.

Victoria Lefler on dance and storytelling

This whiteboard animation is based on Victoria Lefler discussing dancing as a kind of storytelling.

Whiteboard animation by Sierra Taylor.

Friday, May 5, 2023

Black Diaspora and Casting Possibilities

This episode of Remarkable Receptions focuses on black casting in films adapted from African American novels. The episode was written by Nicole Dixon.

Read by Kassandra Timm.

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Related:

• Episodes of Remarkable Receptions

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

The Coverage of Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Ok, last year, I ordered 250 copies of Friday Black (2018), a short story collection by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and coordinated a series of online reading groups with students.

Today, Adjei-Brenyah's novel Chain-Gang All-Stars was released. I'm providing a roundup of some of the coverage on the book here.

• May 26: 6 books to read after 'Chain-Gang All-Stars - Odeya Pinkus - Today

• May 24: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Chain Gang All-Stars w/ Yaa Gyasi - Books Are Magic - YouTube

• May 23: Chain-Gang All-Stars Is Gladiator Meets the American - Prison System - Gabrielle Bellot - The Atlantic

• May 19: “Chain-Gang All-Stars” Makes Prison Abolition Irresistible - Nia T. Evans - Electric Lit

• May 14: Author’s buzzy book ropes readers into its satire of the criminal justice system - Brandon Yu - Datebook

• May 11: Sometimes, Academic Writing Hits Adjei-Brenyah Emotionally - By the Book - New York Times

• May 10: We are the Ones Who Make the World with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - The Stacks

• May 9: A Searing Indictment of the Prison Industrial Complex - Shelbi Polk - Shondaland

• May 9: Adjei-Brenyah Goes In-Depth on Writing His Novel - Penguin Random House - YouTube

• May 5: Chain Gang All Stars,' by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Jenny Shank - Star Tribune

• May 5: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - “Chain Gang All Stars: A Novel” - decaturchurch - YouTube

• May 4: 5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week - LitHub

• May 2: The Genre Novel Has a New Maestro - Jason Parham - Wired

• April 29: Author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah on his new novel 'Chain-Gang All-Stars' - Scott Simon - NPR

• April 28: In This Satire, Televised Blood Baths Offer Prisoners a Path to Freedom - Giri Nathan - New York Times

• April 27: Jenna Bush Hager reveals May 2023 book club pick - TODAY - YouTube

• April 25: The Freeing of Melancholia Bishop - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Esquire

• April 25: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah on His Book 'Chain-Gang All-Stars - Mallika Rao - Vulture

• April 19: In Chain-Gain All-Stars, prison fights have corporate sponsors - Ron Charles - Washington Post

• April 7: Expecting greatness from ‘Chain Gang All Stars' - Justice B. Hill - Cleveland

• February 14: Chain-Gang All-Stars - Publishers Weekly

• January 24: Chain-Gang All-Stars - Kirkus Reviews

Podcasts about comic books and graphic novels

Here's a roundup Remarkable Receptions podcast episodes focusing on comic books, graphic novels, and movies featuring comic book characters.

• Miles Morales – Terrance Wellmaker

• Graphic Novel--Red, White & Black – Stephyn Phillips

• Static Shock – Stephyn Phillips

• Green Lantern (John Stewart) – Stephyn Phillips

• Storm – Stephyn Phillips

• Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Midnight Angels – Howard Rambsy II

• Blade, Vampire Hunter – Stephyn Phillips

• 1970s Black Superheroes – Stephyn Phillips

• Jonathan Majors the Conqueror – Terrance Wellmaker

• From Verses to Visuals on Jack Johnson – Howard Rambsy II

Related:

• Episodes of Remarkable Receptions

• Episodes (by topics) of Remarkable Receptions

Monday, May 1, 2023

Blogging about poetry in April 2023

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry]

• April 22: A checklist of works by and on Juliana Spahr, Stephanie Young, and Claire Grossman

• April 1: Blogging about Poetry in March 2023

Pages

Sunday, May 28, 2023

A checklist of videos & whiteboard animations

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Data Storytelling and Black Literary Recovery Work

Sunday, May 21, 2023

More on African American Poetry during the 1980s

Volumes by black poets, 1980 - 1989

Friday, May 19, 2023

A Notebook on Howard French's Born in Blackness

Preliminary impressions of Born in Blackness

Silencing the Past and Born in Blackness

Coverage of Born in Blackness

Monday, May 8, 2023

On the English major, death of humanities

Saturday, May 6, 2023

The opening of Frederick Douglass's Narrative

A Pertinent Question by Frederick Douglass

When Eugene B. Redmond wondered about the meaning of a black poem

Sierra Taylor on language skills

Victoria Lefler on dance and storytelling

Friday, May 5, 2023

Black Diaspora and Casting Possibilities

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

The Coverage of Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Podcasts about comic books and graphic novels

Monday, May 1, 2023

Blogging about poetry in April 2023