Race and the Literary Encounter

Lesley Larkin

Description

What effect has the black literary imagination attempted to have on, in Toni Morrison's words, "a race of readers that understands itself to be 'universal' or race-free"? How has black literature challenged the notion that reading is a race-neutral act? Race and the Literary Encounter takes as its focus several modern and contemporary African American narratives that not only narrate scenes of reading but also attempt to intervene in them. The texts interrupt, manage, and manipulate, employing thematic, formal, and performative strategies in order to multiply meanings for multiple readers, teach new ways of reading, and enable the emergence of antiracist reading subjects. Analyzing works by James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Jamaica Kincaid, Percival Everett, Sapphire, and Toni Morrison, Lesley Larkin covers a century of African American literature in search of the concepts and strategies that black writers have developed in order to address and theorize a diverse audience, and outlines the special contributions modern and contemporary African American literature makes to the fields of reader ethics and antiracist literary pedagogy.

Introduction: Scenes of Reading, Scenes of Racialization: Modern and Contemporary Black Literature
1. Unbinding the Double Audience: James Weldon Johnson
2. Speakerly Reading: Zora Neale Hurston
3. Close Reading "You": Ralph Ellison
4. Erasing Precious: Sapphire and Percival Everett
5. Reading and Being Read: Jamaica Kincaid
Epilogue: Toward a Theory and Pedagogy of Responsible Reading: Toni Morrison
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• América
• Jamaica Kincaid
• African American
• Percival Everett
• American
• James Weldon Johnson
• Ralph Ellison
• Black

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 14 décembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780253017895
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Race and the Literary Encounter
BLACKS IN THE DIASPORA
editors Herman L. Bennett Kim D. Butler Judith A. Byfield Tracy Sharpley-Whiting
race and the literary encounter
Black Literature from James Weldon Johnson to Percival Everett
Lesley Larkin
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2015 by Lesley Larkin
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Larkin, Lesley.
Race and the literary encounter : black literature from James Weldon Johnson to Percival Everett / Lesley Larkin.
pages cm. - (Blacks in the diaspora)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01758-1 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01787-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01789-5 (ebook) 1. American literature - African American authors - History and criticism. 2. Race in literature. 3. Books and reading - Social aspects - United States. 4. African Americans - Books and reading. 5. African Americans in literature. 6. Identity (Psychology) in literature. I. Title.
PS 153. N 5 L 37 2015
810.9 896073 - dc23
2015033429
1 2 3 4 5 20 19 18 17 16 15
This book is dedicated to my mother, Kathleen Alexandra Frank, whose unconditional love animates everything I do .
The pleasure which I derived from reading had long been a necessity, and in the act of reading, that marvelous collaboration between the writer s artful vision and the reader s sense of life, I had become acquainted with other possible selves - freer, more courageous and ingenuous and, during the course of the narrative at least, even wise.
RALPH ELLISON , SHADOW AND ACT
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction: Scenes of Reading, Scenes of Racialization: Modern and Contemporary Black Literature
1 Unbinding the Double Audience: James Weldon Johnson
2 Speakerly Reading: Zora Neale Hurston
3 Close Reading You : Ralph Ellison
4 Erasing Precious: Sapphire and Percival Everett
5 Reading and Being Read: Jamaica Kincaid
Epilogue: Toward a Theory and Pedagogy of Responsible Reading: Toni Morrison
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Acknowledgments
FIRST, THANK YOU TO THE EDITORS AND STAFF AT INDIANA University Press, including Robert Sloan, Jenna Whitaker, Darja Malcolm-Clarke, and Eric Levy, for believing in and supporting this project. You have been a pleasure to work with. Support for this book has also been provided by several institutions. I would like to thank the University of Washington for a Preparing Future Faculty grant and travel funding, Seattle Pacific University for a research and teaching fellowship, and Northern Michigan University for three Reassigned Time Awards, a Faculty Research Grant, and generous travel support. This book would not exist without the largesse of these institutions. I am also grateful to have taught, at each of these schools, smart and engaging students whose effort to engage in dialogue with African American literature is my primary inspiration.
I must also acknowledge the help and encouragement imparted by numerous mentors, colleagues, and friends. The English faculty at Linfield College - particularly Lex Runciman and Barbara Seidman - taught me that literature does real and lasting work in the world. I also owe tremendous thanks to the English and Comparative Literature faculty at the University of Washington, with special credit due to Carolyn Allen, Katherine Cummings, Gillian Harkins, Chandan Reddy, Cynthia Steele, and Alys Eve Weinbaum for shepherding me through the courses, projects, and dissertation that laid the groundwork for this book. To Alys, especially: your intelligence, empathy, rigor, and commitment continue to guide me. To the talented minds I studied alongside at the University of Washington, including Jeff Chiu, Lana Dalley, Jill Gatlin, Stacy Grooters, Kellie Holzer, Jennifer Ladino, Tamiko Nimura, Andrea Opitz, Amy Reddinger, Vince Schleitwiler, Todd Tietchen, Steve Tobias, and Ji-Young Um: thank you for your brilliance. Special acknowledgment is due to Jeff Chiu and Kellie Holzer, who read and responded to the earliest versions of this project with insight, creativity, and endurance. I am also deeply indebted to the inimitable Amy Reddinger, whom I have followed to the Upper Midwest and who has provided invaluable feedback on this project - as well as food, shelter, and friendship during the long writing and revision process. To the English faculty at Seattle Pacific University - particularly Fan Mayhall Gates and Doug Thorpe - thank you for taking me under your wing as I began to work on this project in earnest. And to my accomplished, engaging, witty colleagues (former and current) at Northern Michigan University, including Lupe Arenillas, Shirley Brozzo, Stephen Burn, Sandy Burr, Lisa Eckert, Amy Hamilton, Alisa Hummell, Austin Hummell, April Lindala, Jaspal Singh, Linda Sirois, Raymond Ventre, and David Houston Wood: thank you for your friendship and intelligence. David Houston Wood deserves special thanks for his insightful comments on sections of this book and for his savvy professional advice, as does Stephen Burn for his extraordinary professional generosity and ongoing mentoring and collaboration. Above all, immeasurable thanks to Amy Hamilton, my constant interlocutor, co-conspirator, and friend. Thank you for arriving at NMU at just the right moment.
To the many friends who have put up with me over the last ten years (or more!), thank you for your humor and patience. Special thanks to Becky Bergman, Alisa Hummell, Sandy Sun, Sarah Wilson, and Vicki Wood for sticking with me even when I seem to drop off the face of the earth. To my parents, Thomas and Kathleen Frank: thank you for supporting everything I have ever done (however ill-conceived), for teaching me what really matters in life, and for your deep and abiding love of reading. Mom, I wish you were here to read this. Thank you to my sisters, Lyndsey Lynch and Whitney Frank, for always being there when I need you and for forgiving me when I haven t been there for you. Thank you to my husband, Kellie Larkin, for supporting me through the long process of earning a PhD, landing a tenure-track job, and writing this book. Your willingness to talk with me about this project for over a decade is truly remarkable. And to my children, Killian and Alex: you are everything.
Race and the Literary Encounter
Art can, in other words, move into life. Not merely . . . by opening our eyes to life, not merely by giving us models of action and response, but by, quite literally, creating us.
ROBERT PENN WARREN , THE UNITY OF EXPERIENCE
Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created.
TONI MORRISON , THE NOBEL LECTURE IN LITERATURE
Introduction
Scenes of Reading, Scenes of Racialization: Modern and Contemporary Black Literature
ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL FILMS OF THE LAST FIVE years, Lee Daniels s Precious (2009) chronicles an abused African American teenager s development as a reader and writer. Adapted from Sapphire s 1996 novel, Push , Precious s story was heralded by many critics for its authentic[ity] (Ebert) and grit (Schmader). Others, however, asserted that the film reinforced racist stereotypes. Armond White called it a carnival of black degradation, and Melissa Harris-Lacewell wrote that the popular embrace of the film had troubling political meaning. 1 The debate over the political meaning of Sapphire s narrative is a powerful reminder that, despite popular claims of America s postracial status, American racial obsessions are alive, well, and very much on the minds of contemporary artists and critics. 2 This debate also recalls longstanding arguments about how black artists should represent black people, especially where nonblack audiences are concerned. In the case of Push , the debate is, more dizzyingly, about how black writers should represent black readers .
Importantly, the Push / Precious debate is not only about representation. It is also about reception. The responsibility for the circulation or interruption of stereotype applies to both filmmakers and audiences, writers and readers. Assertions of reader agency, made by reader-response, reception-studies, and poststructuralist scholars, are also implicit in many modern and contemporary black literary works. Indeed, many such works respond to concerns about racial literacy and the social politics of reading by, as in the case of Push , writing about reading itself and challenging readers to take social and political action. In this book, I read a series of literary works (many at the center of critical controversies) for their contributions to the understanding of literary reception as a site of racial formation and reader agency. My central claim is that modern and contemporary black literature is uniquely positioned to articulate responsible and effective strategies for rereading race and reimagining the reading subject. C