A Novel Ahead of Time

[By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]

The gatekeepers of American culture who think American literature is dying as their worlds hip hop to a start can find consolation in Mat Johnson’s Pym: A Novel (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010).  The book extends the olive branch of hope.  It is evidence of things not seen.  If the gatekeepers have not been convinced to stop playing at being Melchizedek by Garry Will’s Why Priests? : A Failed Tradition (New York: Viking, 2013), Pym will teach them the errors of their ways.

Pym restores the centrality of Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), in American Studies.  It confirms that white cannot possess “the perfect whiteness of snow” without a drop of black.  “Whatever twentieth-century ‘whites’ think about ‘blacks,’ according to Joseph R. Urgo’s Novel Frames: Literature as Guide to Race, Sex, and History in American Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), “they owe their existence ---politically and culturally, and in many cases, genetically --- to those same black drops”(19).

Paul Robeson: Artist and Activist

[ By Meredith Wiggins]

The Tallest Tree in the Forest, actor and playwright Daniel Beaty’s new one-man show about the life of African American actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson, ends with Beaty eulogizing Robeson with some of Robeson’s own words: “The artist must take sides.  He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery.  I have made my choice.”  That quote, which would become Robeson’s epitaph, provides an accurate summation of Beaty’s view of Robeson, an artist and performer whose real-life dedication to human rights causes and early support of the Soviet Union saw him branded as a Communist by the press and government of the United States and driven out of show business almost until the end of his life.

Before he came under fire from J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joseph McCarthy, Robeson spent a number of years building a massive following as an international film and theatre star.  He is probably best remembered for his role as Joe in Hammerstein and Kern’s groundbreaking musical Show Boat—specifically, for his rendition of the show’s most famous song, "Ol' Man River"—but Robeson was actually not the first actor to play the role.  (He took over from the original Joe, Jules Bledsoe, when the show opened in London in 1928, and subsequently played the role twice more on stage, as well as in the 1936 filmed musical.)  So great was his popularity that the lawyer-turned-performer even sang before the Prince of Wales.

Looking Back: The Project on the History of Black Writing

[By Goyland Williams]

Over the past week, the Project on the History of Black Writing have released our Look Back Series as part of HBW’s 30 year anniversary. Collectively, the video series has given a glimpse into key events, conferences, literary scholars, grants, and institutions that have helped to ensure the success and mission of the project.

Although HBW’s history spans all the way back to 1983 at the University of Mississippi, (1989-1997) at Northeastern University, and (1998-Present) now at the University of Kansas, one factor has remained fixed—Dr. Maryemma Graham. Graham’s emphasis on collaborative work, board member support, and her persistence, has been integral for the success that HBW has enjoyed throughout the years. 

While at the University of Kansas, HBW has been very successful in receiving funding from the National Endowment in the Humanities and other external funding devoted to public outreach, professional development, and literary recovery. Below, I have compiled a list of NEH funded projects [at KU] that has helped Dr. Graham advance and promote African American Literature and culture. 

*2001--“Speaking of Rivers: Taking Poetry to the People” 

*2002--“Language Matters I: Reading and Teaching Toni Morrison”

*2003--“Speaking of Rivers: Taking Poetry to the People”

*2004--“Language Matters II: Reading and Teaching Toni Morrison, The Cardozo Project Model”

*2009--“Making the Wright Connection: Teaching Black Boy, Native Son, and Uncle Tom’s Children”

*2010--“Language Matters IV: Reading and Teaching Toni Morrison in Translation”

 *2013--“Don’t Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African American Poetries” 

Related:

HBW Celebrates 30 Years
Look Back Series-Featuring Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
Look Back Series-Featuring Michael Eric Dyson
Look Back Series-Featuring Eugene Redmond

Michael Eric Dyson: 2000-2010

[By Goyland Williams]

It is hard and sometimes impossible to imagine that a single scholar/public intellectual can publish as much as Michael Dyson has done. In a decade, Dyson published and edited more than 10 books. Wow! With topics ranging from the complicated and often misunderstood life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to philosophical reflections on life, popular music, and religion, Dyson brings a wide array of scholarship to the table. The timeline that I compiled, highlights the impressive range and depth of topics by one of America’s most sought after public intellectual.