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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
I really liked this collection of essays and found it really easy to read (it's under 100 pages). I felt like it flowed really well and you could tell that it was written by a fiction writer.
It is basically exploring the effects that living in a racialised society has had on American writing of the 19th and 20th centuries. She argues that the central characteristics of American lit - individualism, masculinity and the insistence upon innocence are responses to "a dark and abiding Africanist presence". I really liked the parts on how reader is always positioned as "white" and the questions of what this has meant for the literary imagination.
It is basically exploring the effects that living in a racialised society has had on American writing of the 19th and 20th centuries. She argues that the central characteristics of American lit - individualism, masculinity and the insistence upon innocence are responses to "a dark and abiding Africanist presence". I really liked the parts on how reader is always positioned as "white" and the questions of what this has meant for the literary imagination.
Very thought-provoking, but my appreciation of certain sections really relied on my having read some of the works that Morrison discussed. I'd like to revisit this when I've read more of them.
Interesting in-depth analysis of the presence of "Africanism" in classic American literature and how the construction of whiteness depends on blackness in these classics.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
“Africanism is the vehicle by which the American self knows itself as not enslaved but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned, but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but a progressive fulfillment of destiny”.
Amazing essays on the ‘Africanist’ presence in American literature.
Amazing essays on the ‘Africanist’ presence in American literature.
A total and inspiring reframing of American literature, re-centering it on the constructions of African-ness and blackness. Instead of simplifying the American literary canon to the social dominance of the white male, she exposes the very construction of the white male and the negation of blackness at that identity’s heart. Her innovation is an act of colonial reparations.
A splendid introduction to the study of how American authors have portrayed and utilized African-American characters in their work. Really compelling and thought-provoking.
An insightful and important look at whiteness and the representation of the "Africanist" in literature. I only have two minor criticisms:
1. Morrison assures us early on that the examples she is discussing still exist (and I agree with her), but her discussion is limited to classic literature, most of which is over a century old. It would have been nice to see some more contemporary examples in the mix (even something from the 70s, for example).
2. It's a very short book, and I think there was room to explore this idea in much more depth, and really push the ideas further.
So basically my criticisms are: I want more!
1. Morrison assures us early on that the examples she is discussing still exist (and I agree with her), but her discussion is limited to classic literature, most of which is over a century old. It would have been nice to see some more contemporary examples in the mix (even something from the 70s, for example).
2. It's a very short book, and I think there was room to explore this idea in much more depth, and really push the ideas further.
So basically my criticisms are: I want more!
4.45/5
“All of us, readers and writers, are bereft when criticism remains too polite or too fearful to notice a disrupting darkness before its eyes.”
Would be a 5/5 if I’d been more familiar with the case studies/pieces Morrison uses in her analysis, however it nonetheless pushed me to apply a more critical lens at how our language and literature is shaped by the presence of color, race, and the (attempted) absence thereof.
“All of us, readers and writers, are bereft when criticism remains too polite or too fearful to notice a disrupting darkness before its eyes.”
Would be a 5/5 if I’d been more familiar with the case studies/pieces Morrison uses in her analysis, however it nonetheless pushed me to apply a more critical lens at how our language and literature is shaped by the presence of color, race, and the (attempted) absence thereof.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced