More importantly, he risks pushing the present aside along with history. African American writing, particularly in the age of terror, I would argue, is engaged in a project of reconstitution, one that reflects how African American literature, a self-conscious creative and literary critical enterprise, has been transformed by the post-nationalist shifts in black politics, black studies, and black art. What would it take to theorize these shifts? If it is true, as Warren suggests, that post-Reconstruction writers summoned African American literature into being, it was after Jim Crow, and more precisely, after the civil rights legislation of and that is, not in the wake of a failed Reconstruction project but in the wake of a successful civil rights project , that African American literature as discrete, coherent unit of expression, as a market phenomenon, and as an epistemological object became central to the institutionalization of black studies, black art, and black politics.
For African American literature was not invented once and for all during Jim Crow; it was afterward, precisely when the legal outcome of or concessions to black protest failed to produce the desired ends of vastly improved quality of life, freedom from poverty, etc. Perhaps African American literature as we know it is a product of this historical juncture, to the present, rather than a previous one. Perhaps theorizing more deliberately the persistence of African American literature as the object of our desire will help us better understand how power, race, and reading communities function in the post-civil rights era to deconstruct and reconstruct African American literature through and against the upheavals of time.
Warren asks us — indeed, dares us — to take seriously the history of black writing and to rid ourselves of nostalgia for the idealized racial solidarity borne of legalized segregation. By marking an end point for African American literature, Warren defies us to begin the formidable work of the present.
But this begs the question: why would anyone be satisfied with such a procrustean definition of the field of African American literature? Warren never really supplies sufficiently compelling to this reader at least answers to that question, despite his powerfully engaging readings of literary history and recent debates.
His argument feels familiar. In a world of such fine distinctions, the assertion once made by conservative white critics can now be made by a prominent African American critic: African American literature, perhaps, is not. Furthermore, to continue to pursue African American literary studies as if it was the key to racial uplift is to at least tacitly endorse the idea that systemic issues in our society can be solved through individual contribution. In other words, arguing for the continued existence of African American Literature as a way to do social justice counter-productively promotes the detrimental ideology of personal responsibility.
I like Warren's politics and I think the book raises very important issues and comes to important conclusions. However, I think his claim is just a bit too grand.
It is true and Warren acknowledges that such explicit racism as Jim Crow is gone. So, to me, it seems more accurate to argue that African American Literature has changed since the end of Jim Crow, but I don't think you can convincingly argue that it outright ended.
Alternatively, you could argue that African American literature never really existed in the first place because of identity divides including sex, sexuality, gender, and religion but to argue that it had existed before and that it no longer exists now simply because of Jim Crow's demise is essential to argue that laws equal culture, which I cannot agree with.
I think culture is far too complex to reduce down to laws. Still, I appreciate that the book challenges a lot of the essentializing that goes on in AfAm Studies and I think the premise of the book is solid, even if the conclusion is slightly too sensational.
Feb 12, Tony Lindsay rated it really liked it. Jun 05, Tom rated it liked it Shelves: america , english , non-fiction , men. Interesting look into the workings of the genre of 'African American literature', which Warren claims no longer exists as a coherent genre now that segregation laws have been made obsolete and slavery is, you know, no longer a thing.
Sadly, Warren forgets to actually come to a fulfilling synthesis to support his claim. Warren skims over the fact that discrimination is still a big thing, and reduces everyday racism to a small worry seeing as 'black people are now a part of a working democracy'.
Th Interesting look into the workings of the genre of 'African American literature', which Warren claims no longer exists as a coherent genre now that segregation laws have been made obsolete and slavery is, you know, no longer a thing.
Then again, this book was written before the whole Black Lives Matter-movement came along; I would argue that this movement alone has refurbished the platform for a coherent 'African American literature' - the police shootings have shown that racism is no small worry, even nowadays. So I'm inclined to disagree with Warren when he says that African American literature is no more than a historical term of designation - it might have spent a few years trying to recompose a sense of unity, but I do believe that nowadays the message of the 'black community and its plight' is back in full fervor, and rightfully so.
Mar 20, Hollis rated it really liked it. This is a remarkably clear read for a seemingly provocative title and argument, which actually gets followed very thoroughly. Highly recom This is a remarkably clear read for a seemingly provocative title and argument, which actually gets followed very thoroughly.
Highly recommended. Mar 01, Hannah rated it liked it Shelves: critical-theory , sociopolitical-sociocultural. Okay, I'm a little lost. On the one hand this was an overly dense book. The first two chapters spent so much time and effort historicizing African American literature that I was bored, plus I forgot that it was a book describing why a certain literature was dead, not how a certain literature arose in the first place.
History was certainly necessary, but perhaps not to the extent that it was given here. On the other hand, though, the third chapter and conclusion were rather compelling, offering a Okay, I'm a little lost. On the other hand, though, the third chapter and conclusion were rather compelling, offering a good amount of arguments and frameworks for understanding the purpose and function of African American literature, as well as analyzing the homage paid to original African American literary works in contemporary works written today.
And I certainly understood the point that African American literature is a slippery concept, a literature born out of specific rejections or struggles against slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism, and its primary function is, paradoxically, to overcome a condition that created the need for the literature in the first place, and to self-define oneself in the face of a dominant culture that otherized, effectively otherizing oneself, while hoping to eliminate that need to somewhat paraphrase Warren.
In that sense, it's a lot like affirmative action--it exists in order to create a circumstance in which its existence is no longer necessary, but reactions to its existence tend to further its necessity. However, at the end of the book, I felt that Warren did more to prove that African American literature as a form of cultural preservation and reaction to racial history still does need to exist, if only for the same reason as affirmative action that comparison is mine, not Warren's , and that without a distinct African American literature, we end up either with a whitewashed literary culture or a sell-out "African American literature" culture meaning the stuff that Borders shelves as African American literature, which effectively equates the literary quality of Wright and Morrison with the commercial writers who write quick-sell books about baby mama drama, sex and drugs or with a colorblind literary culture that erases racial history altogether.
If Warren had focused on the question of a "distinct culture," rather than a "distinct people," he perhaps would have considered what it means for a culture to come into being as a result of a Supreme Court decision and to be dissolved as a result of jurisprudential and legislative act. Cultures are not necessarily more "distinct" than peoples, but at least this would begin to unravel Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide.
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Institutional Login. LOG IN. Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press. Document Type: Book review. Length: 1, words. Lexile Measure: L. Translate Article. Set Interface Language. Decrease font size.
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