This review essay compares the research methodologies and narrative strategies of Baldwin biographies as well as their main claims. Analyzing these books in their chronological order, it seeks to chart a history of book-length knowledge production about the dynamics between Baldwin’s ideas, art, personal life, and public roles. The conclusion of this review essay heralds the future of biographical research in Baldwin Studies. It also proposes two new narratives about Baldwin: a chronicle of his responses to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s surveillance of him and a broader chronicle of his responses to Cold War conservatism.
{"title":"From The Furious Passage (1966) to Living in Fire (2019)","authors":"William Henry Pruitt","doi":"10.7227/jbr.9.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.9.10","url":null,"abstract":"This review essay compares the research methodologies and narrative strategies of Baldwin biographies as well as their main claims. Analyzing these books in their chronological order, it seeks to chart a history of book-length knowledge production about the dynamics between Baldwin’s ideas, art, personal life, and public roles. The conclusion of this review essay heralds the future of biographical research in Baldwin Studies. It also proposes two new narratives about Baldwin: a chronicle of his responses to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s surveillance of him and a broader chronicle of his responses to Cold War conservatism.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134885665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
James Baldwin Review offers readers a reprint of a rare archival find, an article from Emerge magazine, first published in October of 1989, which ran with this abstract: “A magazine editor recalls working with his literary hero and getting to know the surprisingly vulnerable, charming, and often exasperating man behind the legend.”
{"title":"Moment of Truth in Atlanta","authors":"Walter Lowe","doi":"10.7227/jbr.9.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.9.9","url":null,"abstract":"James Baldwin Review offers readers a reprint of a rare archival find, an article from Emerge magazine, first published in October of 1989, which ran with this abstract: “A magazine editor recalls working with his literary hero and getting to know the surprisingly vulnerable, charming, and often exasperating man behind the legend.”","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134885664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For several years now, James Baldwin’s life, portrait, and work have enjoyed a central place in the public eye. Although social and audiovisual media have made significant contributions to Baldwin’s return to the cultural and political limelight, the circulation of his published writings remains a vital part of the author’s ubiquity. Moreover, since Baldwin’s omnipresence in bookstores transcends an American or even Anglophone context, this international and multilingual circulation contributes to Baldwin’s world literary standing, as befits the self-described “transatlantic commuter.” This article moves beyond the customary approach to Baldwin’s published success by tracing presently circulating European translations of his work. The article examines the historical developments in Baldwin’s European circulation-through-translation from the time of his death (1987) up until the present, including brief discussions of the French, Italian, and West German translations from the 1960s onward. Of special interest are the pioneering and dominant roles that French and Italian publishers have played since the late 1990s, and the acceleration in circulation that took place across the continent in the wake of the films I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk. The article concludes with a few remarks on the translation strategies of several key publishers in France, Italy, Germany, and Romania.
{"title":"The Evidence of Things Translated","authors":"Remo Verdickt","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.12","url":null,"abstract":"For several years now, James Baldwin’s life, portrait, and work have\u0000 enjoyed a central place in the public eye. Although social and audiovisual media\u0000 have made significant contributions to Baldwin’s return to the cultural\u0000 and political limelight, the circulation of his published writings remains a\u0000 vital part of the author’s ubiquity. Moreover, since Baldwin’s\u0000 omnipresence in bookstores transcends an American or even Anglophone context,\u0000 this international and multilingual circulation contributes to Baldwin’s\u0000 world literary standing, as befits the self-described\u0000 “transatlantic commuter.” This article moves beyond the customary\u0000 approach to Baldwin’s published success by tracing presently circulating\u0000 European translations of his work. The article examines the historical\u0000 developments in Baldwin’s European circulation-through-translation from\u0000 the time of his death (1987) up until the present, including brief discussions\u0000 of the French, Italian, and West German translations from the 1960s onward. Of\u0000 special interest are the pioneering and dominant roles that French and Italian\u0000 publishers have played since the late 1990s, and the acceleration in circulation\u0000 that took place across the continent in the wake of the films I Am Not\u0000 Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk. The\u0000 article concludes with a few remarks on the translation strategies of several\u0000 key publishers in France, Italy, Germany, and Romania.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49612618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This review of the James Baldwin symposium at Virginia State University weighs the insights presented by a number of Black and white scholars, only a few of whom might be considered deeply informed about his life and legacy. Even so, the emerging thinkers provide a wealth of new and interesting perspectives on Baldwin, and the event was highlighted by Molefi Kete Asante’s critical lecture. His comments are a veritable call to arms, an invitation to Baldwin devotees to contend with his conclusions, a process which this article will begin.
这篇对弗吉尼亚州立大学詹姆斯·鲍德温研讨会的回顾权衡了许多黑人和白人学者提出的见解，其中只有少数人可能被认为对他的生活和遗产有深入的了解。即便如此，新兴的思想家们还是为鲍德温提供了丰富而有趣的新视角，而莫莱菲·凯特·阿桑特(Molefi Kete Asante)的批判性演讲也强调了这一事件。他的评论是真正的战斗召唤，邀请鲍德温的信徒们来争论他的结论，这篇文章将开始一个过程。
{"title":"Baldwin Boxed in at Virginia State Symposium","authors":"H. Boyd","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.10","url":null,"abstract":"This review of the James Baldwin symposium at Virginia State University weighs\u0000 the insights presented by a number of Black and white scholars, only a few of\u0000 whom might be considered deeply informed about his life and legacy. Even so, the\u0000 emerging thinkers provide a wealth of new and interesting perspectives on\u0000 Baldwin, and the event was highlighted by Molefi Kete Asante’s critical\u0000 lecture. His comments are a veritable call to arms, an invitation to Baldwin\u0000 devotees to contend with his conclusions, a process which this article will\u0000 begin.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44400880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this mixture of memoir, reflection, and scholarship, the author details how, during a time of suffering, James Baldwin and singer Celia Cruz helped him understand his tense relationship with his toxic paternal grandparents and celebrate the reclamation of his stifled Mexican heritage.
{"title":"Celia, James, and Me","authors":"Michael A. L. Broyles","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.11","url":null,"abstract":"In this mixture of memoir, reflection, and scholarship, the author details how,\u0000 during a time of suffering, James Baldwin and singer Celia Cruz helped him\u0000 understand his tense relationship with his toxic paternal grandparents and\u0000 celebrate the reclamation of his stifled Mexican heritage.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46165091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using political and critical theory, this article identifies in James Baldwin a model for citizenship unique to the Black artist who assumed the dual responsibilities of art practice and political activism. I engage with Baldwin’s fiction and his writing about other Black artists working in theater, film, dance, and music during the period of the civil rights movement. Across his career, Baldwin’s prevailing view was that, because of their history, Black artists have the singular, and indeed superlative, capacity to make art as praxis. Baldwin explains that the craft of the Black artist depends upon representing truths, rather than fantasies, about their experience, so that they are at once artists pursuing freedom and citizens pursuing justice. This article pays particular attention to the tension between living a public, political life and the need for privacy to create art, and ultimately the toll this takes on the citizen artist. Baldwin demonstrates how the community of mutual support he finds among Black artists aids in their survival. In his writings on Sidney Poitier and Lorraine Hansberry, his friendships with Beauford Delaney and Josephine Baker, as well as his reviews of music and literature, Baldwin assembles a collective he refers to as “I and my tribe.”
{"title":"Baldwin and the Role of the Citizen Artist","authors":"Monika Gehlawat","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.6","url":null,"abstract":"Using political and critical theory, this article identifies in James Baldwin a\u0000 model for citizenship unique to the Black artist who assumed the dual\u0000 responsibilities of art practice and political activism. I engage with\u0000 Baldwin’s fiction and his writing about other Black artists working in\u0000 theater, film, dance, and music during the period of the civil rights movement.\u0000 Across his career, Baldwin’s prevailing view was that, because of their\u0000 history, Black artists have the singular, and indeed superlative, capacity to\u0000 make art as praxis. Baldwin explains that the craft of the Black artist depends\u0000 upon representing truths, rather than fantasies, about their experience, so that\u0000 they are at once artists pursuing freedom and citizens pursuing\u0000 justice. This article pays particular attention to the tension between living a\u0000 public, political life and the need for privacy to create art, and ultimately\u0000 the toll this takes on the citizen artist. Baldwin demonstrates how the\u0000 community of mutual support he finds among Black artists aids in their survival.\u0000 In his writings on Sidney Poitier and Lorraine Hansberry, his friendships with\u0000 Beauford Delaney and Josephine Baker, as well as his reviews of music and\u0000 literature, Baldwin assembles a collective he refers to as “I and my\u0000 tribe.”","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44564949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
One theme in James Baldwin’s work that has gained increasing attention in the last quarter-century is music. What has been missing from this discussion, however, has been a thematic survey of Baldwin’s writing on music and its implications for the twenty-first century. This article focuses on select music-centered texts to examine what Baldwin’s ideas about music reveal about history in our own times. Multiple themes in his writing show how racial slavery creates—in the present tense—differences in experiences and musical expression between people constructed as Black and as white. Baldwin’s writing illuminates the significance of racial slavery in American music history even beyond genres associated with Black Americans.
{"title":"“This Music Begins on the Auction Block”","authors":"J. Friedberg","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.8","url":null,"abstract":"One theme in James Baldwin’s work that has gained increasing attention in\u0000 the last quarter-century is music. What has been missing from this discussion,\u0000 however, has been a thematic survey of Baldwin’s writing on music and its\u0000 implications for the twenty-first century. This article focuses on select\u0000 music-centered texts to examine what Baldwin’s ideas about music reveal\u0000 about history in our own times. Multiple themes in his writing show how racial\u0000 slavery creates—in the present tense—differences in experiences\u0000 and musical expression between people constructed as Black and as white.\u0000 Baldwin’s writing illuminates the significance of racial slavery in\u0000 American music history even beyond genres associated with Black Americans.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47213446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines James Baldwin’s late text The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985) as one of his substantial attempts at “forging a new language,” which he tentatively mentions in his late essays and interviews. As an unpopular and difficult text in Baldwin’s oeuvre, Evidence carries the imprint of a new economy of time, casting the past into the present, and a new economy of space, navigating across other geographies in appraising the serial killings of children in one of Atlanta’s poorest Black neighborhoods. This article suggests that a new economy of time emerges earlier in No Name in the Street (1972), as a result of Baldwin’s self-imposed exile in Europe. The article then analyzes his spatiotemporal logic in the specifics of Evidence with reference to a Black middle class, urbanization, the ghetto, gentrification, and other colonized spaces.
{"title":"“Forging a New Language”","authors":"Özge Özbek Akıman","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.4","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines James Baldwin’s late text The Evidence of\u0000 Things Not Seen (1985) as one of his substantial attempts at\u0000 “forging a new language,” which he tentatively mentions in his\u0000 late essays and interviews. As an unpopular and difficult text in\u0000 Baldwin’s oeuvre, Evidence carries the imprint of a new\u0000 economy of time, casting the past into the present, and a new economy of space,\u0000 navigating across other geographies in appraising the serial killings of\u0000 children in one of Atlanta’s poorest Black neighborhoods. This article\u0000 suggests that a new economy of time emerges earlier in No Name in the\u0000 Street (1972), as a result of Baldwin’s self-imposed exile\u0000 in Europe. The article then analyzes his spatiotemporal logic in the specifics\u0000 of Evidence with reference to a Black middle class,\u0000 urbanization, the ghetto, gentrification, and other colonized spaces.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42712887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article is a close analysis of Baldwin’s voice in the essay “Notes of a Native Son.” Much has been written about Baldwin’s themes, but without his singular voice, the power of his works would not endure. Through his use of diction, repetition, alliteration and assonance, scene selection, and even punctuation, Baldwin provides the reader with a transformative experience by rendering his own experience accessible. The political and the personal are inextricable, a truth made unavoidable by the way Baldwin writes as much as by the subject he chooses. Examining how he crafts his voice allows us to understand more deeply the power of “Notes of a Native Son.”
{"title":"Reaching toward the Reader","authors":"Beth Tillman","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.7","url":null,"abstract":"This article is a close analysis of Baldwin’s voice in the essay\u0000 “Notes of a Native Son.” Much has been written about\u0000 Baldwin’s themes, but without his singular voice, the power of his works\u0000 would not endure. Through his use of diction, repetition, alliteration and\u0000 assonance, scene selection, and even punctuation, Baldwin provides the reader\u0000 with a transformative experience by rendering his own experience accessible. The\u0000 political and the personal are inextricable, a truth made unavoidable by the way\u0000 Baldwin writes as much as by the subject he chooses. Examining how he crafts his\u0000 voice allows us to understand more deeply the power of “Notes of a Native\u0000 Son.”","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46143079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article delves into James Baldwin’s work and experience in the pivotal year 1968. Working with archival materials and granular contexts that are still not a full part of our understanding of Baldwin’s story, this article paints a fuller and more nuanced portrait of Baldwin’s position astraddle cultural cross-currents that were in volatile and often violent relationship to each other and at times to themselves. The “sixties” were ending in flames as Baldwin had forecast at the outset of the decade. Baldwin was based in California, often in transit to New York and London, working in ways that were at once high-profile and underground—to the extent that we’re only now seeing real evidence of some of these conversations. The result is a fuller account of how Baldwin developed and deployed his gifts with risk-taking generosity and intergenerational brilliance during one of the most volatile years of the twentieth century in the United States and beyond.
{"title":"Nonviolence, Black Power, and “the Citizens of Pompeii”","authors":"Ed Pavlič","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.2","url":null,"abstract":"This article delves into James Baldwin’s work and experience in the\u0000 pivotal year 1968. Working with archival materials and granular contexts that\u0000 are still not a full part of our understanding of Baldwin’s story, this\u0000 article paints a fuller and more nuanced portrait of Baldwin’s position\u0000 astraddle cultural cross-currents that were in volatile and often violent\u0000 relationship to each other and at times to themselves. The\u0000 “sixties” were ending in flames as Baldwin had forecast at the\u0000 outset of the decade. Baldwin was based in California, often in transit to New\u0000 York and London, working in ways that were at once high-profile and\u0000 underground—to the extent that we’re only now seeing real evidence\u0000 of some of these conversations. The result is a fuller account of how Baldwin\u0000 developed and deployed his gifts with risk-taking generosity and\u0000 intergenerational brilliance during one of the most volatile years of the\u0000 twentieth century in the United States and beyond.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45747033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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