James Baldwin : America and beyond / edited by Cora Kaplan and Bill Schwarz.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kaplan, Cora.

Schwarz, Bill, 1951-

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Baldwin, James, 1924-1987--Criticism and interpretation.

Baldwin, James.

Baldwin, James, 1924-1987.

African Americans in literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 259 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2011.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

This Interdisciplinary Collection by leading writers in their fields brings together a discussion of the many facets of James Baldwin, both as a writer and as the prophetic conscience of a nation. The core of the volume addresses the shifting, complex relations between Baldwin as an American-"as American as any Texas GI" as he once wryly put it-and his life as an itinerant cosmopolitan. His ambivalent imaginings of America were always mediated by his conception of a world "beyond" America: a world he knew both from his travels and from his voracious reading. He was a man whose instincts were, at every turn, nurtured by America but who at the same time developed a ferocious critique of American exceptionalism. In seeking to understand how, as an American, he could learn to live with difference-breaking the power of fundamentalisms of all stripes-he opened an urgent, timely debate that is still ours. His America was an idea fired by desire and grief in equal measure. As the authors assembled here argue, to read him now allows us to imagine new possibilities for the future. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 What It Means to Be an American

1 Stranger at Home

James Baldwin on What It Means to Be an American / Cheryl A. Wall Wall, Cheryl A. 35

2 Baldwin and "the American Confusion" / Colm Toibin Toibin, Colm 53

3 "Over and Over and Over Again"

James Baldwin, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the Afterlife of an American Story / Briallen Hopper Hopper, Briallen 69

4 "Now Describing You"

James Baldwin and Cold War Liberalism / Vaughn Rasberry Rasberry, Vaughn 84

5 Baldwin, Prophecy, and Politics / George Shulman Shulman, George 106

6 Rendezvous with Life

Reading Early and Late Baldwin / Robert Reid-Pharr Reid-Pharr, Robert 126

Part 2 Stranger in the Village

7 "History's Ass Pocket"

The Sources of Baldwinian Diaspora / Kevin Birmingham Birmingham, Kevin 141

8 Separate and Unequal in Paris

Notes of a Native Son and the Law / D. Quentin Miller Miller, D. Quentin 159

9 Exile and the Private Life

James Baldwin, George Lamming, and the First World Congress of Negro Writers and Artists / Kevin Gaines Gaines, Kevin 173

10 From Istanbul to St. Paul-de-Vence

Around James Baldwin's The Welcome Table / Magdalena J. Zaborowska Zaborowska, Magdalena J. 188

11 What Is Africa to Baldwin?

Cultural Illegitimacy and the Step-fatherland / Douglas Field Field, Douglas 209

12 James Baldwin and Chinua Achebe

Transgressing Official Vocabularies / Eleanor W. Traylor Traylor, Eleanor W. 229.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

0472027611

0472051520

0472071521

9780472027613

9780472051526

9780472071524

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.1168369

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.