Amiri Baraka : the politics and art of a Black intellectual / Jerry Gafio Watts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Watts, Jerry Gafio.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Baraka, Amiri, 1934-2014--Political and social views.

Baraka, Amiri.

Baraka, Amiri, 1934-2014.

Politics and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Politics and literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Political and social views.

United States.

History.

Baraka, Amiri, 1934-2014--Criticism and interpretation.

African Americans--Politics and government.

African Americans.

African Americans--Intellectual life.

Black people--Politics and government.

Black people.

African Americans in literature.

Black people--Intellectual life.

Black people in literature.

Physical Description:

xiv, 577 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2001]

Summary:

Amiri Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones, became known as one of the most militant, antiwhite black nationalists of the 1960s Black Power movement. An advocate of Black Cultural Nationalism, Baraka supported the rejection of all things white and western. He helped found and direct the influential Black Arts movement which sought to move black writers away from western aesthetic sensibilities and toward a more complete embrace of the black world. Except perhaps for James Baldwin, no single figure has had more of an impact on black intellectual and artistic life during the last forty years.

In this groundbreaking and comprehensive study, the first to interweave Baraka's art and political activities, Jerry Watts takes us from his early immersion in the New York scene through the most dynamic period in the life and work of this controversial figure. Watts situates Baraka within the various worlds through which he traveled, including Beat Bohemia, Marxist-Leninism, and Black Nationalism. In the process, he convincingly demonstrates how the twenty-five years between Baraka's emergence in 1960 and his continued influence in the mid-1980s can also be read as a general commentary on the condition of black intellectuals during the same time. Continually using Baraka as the focal point for a broader analysis, Watts illustrates the link between Baraka's life and the lives of other black writers trying to realize their artistic ambitions, and contrasts him with other key political intellectuals of the time. In a chapter sure to prove controversial, Watts links Baraka's famous misogyny to an attempt to bury his own homosexual past.

A work of extraordinary breadth, Amiri Baraka is a powerful portrait of one man's lifework and the pivotal time it represents in African American history. Informed by a wealth of original research, it fills a crucial gap in the lively literature on black thought and history and will continue to be a touchstone work for some time to come.

Contents:

1 Birth of an Intellectual Journey 21

2 Bohemian Immersions 44

3 An Alien among Outsiders 85

4 Rejecting Bohemia: The Politicization of Ethnic Guilt 141

5 The Quest for a Blacker Art 171

6 Toward a Black Arts Infrastructure 210

7 Black Arts Poet and Essayist 225

8 Black Revolutionary Playwright 259

9 Kawaida: Totalizing the Commitment 291

10 The Slave as Master: Black Nationalism, Kawaida, and the Repression of Women 325

11 New-Ark and the Emergence of Pragmatic Nationalism 348

12 Pan-Africanism 374

13 National Black Political Convention 401

14 Ever Faithful: Toward a Religious Marxism 420

15 The Artist as Marxist / The Marxist as Artist 444.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 553-570) and index.

ISBN:

0814793738

OCLC:

46678205