The Buck, the Black, and the Existential Hero: Refiguring The Black Male Literary Canon, 1850 to Present - REVIEW

 

            The Buck, the Black, and the Existential Hero combines philosophy, literary theory, and jazz studies with Africana studies to develop a theory of the black male literary imagination. In doing so, James B. Haile III seeks to answer fundamental aesthetic and existential questions: How does the experience of being black and male in the modern West affect the telling of a narrative, the shape or structure of a novel, the development of characters and plot lines, and the nature of criticism itself?

            Haile argues that, since black male identity is largely fluid and open to interpretation, reinterpretation, and misinterpretation, the literature of black men has developed flexibility and improvisation, which he terms the “jazz of life.” Reading this literature requires the same kind of flexibility and improvisation to understand what is being said and why, as well as what is not being said and why. The book attempts to offer this new reading experience by placing texts by well-known authors, such as Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Colson Whitehead, in conversation with texts by less well-known figures who are largely forgotten, in particular, Cecil Brown. Doing so challenges the reader to visit and revisit these novels with a new perspective on the social, political, historical, and psychic realities of black men.

“James B. Haile III has fashioned a penetrating lens through which to examine the African American male subject in literature, as well as how this subject is conventionally discussed within literary criticism and philosophy . . . This will be an important work.”
-Anthony Stewart, author of George Orwell, Doubleness, and the Value of Decency

James B. Haile III is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Rhode Island

The Buck, the Black, and the Existential Hero: Refiguring The Black Male Literary Canon, 1850 to Present by James B. Haile III
Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 978-0-8191-4166-7, 214 pages

Humane Insights: Looking at Images of African American Suffering and Death - REVIEW

      Americans have long viewed historical images of the mortal, wounded, and dead black body from a safe distance. Questioning the relationship between spectator and victim, Courtney R. Baker urges viewers to move beyond the safety of the “gaze” to cultivate a capacity for humane insight toward representations of human suffering. She utilizes the visual studies concept termed the “look” to examine how people articulated and recognized notions of humanity in oft-referenced moments within the African American experience: the graphic brutality of the 1834 Lalaurie affair; Without Sanctuary, the groundbreaking photographic exhibition of lynching; Emmett Till’s murder and funeral; and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Contemplating these and other episodes, Baker traces how proponents of black freedom and dignity use the visual display of violence against the black body to galvanize action against racial injustice.

An innovative cultural study that connects visual theory to African American history, Humane Insight asserts the importance of ethics in our analysis of race and visual culture, and reveals how representations of pain can become the currency of black liberation from injustice.

“With perceptive and original analysis, Baker moves us through a series of historical moments when images of black pain and death made black suffering legible to a wider public.”
-Amy Louise Wood, author of Lynching and Spectacle; Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940

“This groundbreaking book is a corrective to recent arguments that have misunderstood the role of representations of black suffering and death in empowering a people. With insight and keen observation, it illuminates how proponents of black freedom and dignity employed difficult images to alter public opinion and spur change.”
-Maurice Berger, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Courtney R. Baker is an associate professor of American studies and Black studies at Occidental College.

Humane Insights: Looking at Images of African American Suffering and Death
ISBN: 978-0-252-08299-3
University of Illinois Press, 139 pages