Justin A. Joyce introduces the eighth volume of James Baldwin Review with a discussion of the US Supreme Court, the misdirected uproar over Critical Race Theory, a survey of canonical dystopian novels, and the symbolism of masking during COVID-19.
{"title":"Brothers or Fools","authors":"J. A. Joyce","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.1","url":null,"abstract":"Justin A. Joyce introduces the eighth volume of James Baldwin\u0000 Review with a discussion of the US Supreme Court, the misdirected\u0000 uproar over Critical Race Theory, a survey of canonical dystopian novels, and\u0000 the symbolism of masking during COVID-19.","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":"46684474","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 compares the works of James Baldwin and Jean Améry, a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust. It attempts to unpack the ethical and political implications of their shared conception of the temporality of trauma. The experiences of the victim of anti-Semitism and the victim of anti-Black racism not only parallel one another, but their mutual incapacity to let go of the injustice of the past also generates a unique ethico-political response. The backward glance of the victim, the avowed incapacity to heal, as well as the phantasmatic desire to reverse time all guide this unique response. Instead of seeking forgiveness for the wrong done and declaring that all forms of resentment are illegitimate, Baldwin and Améry show us that channeling the revenge fantasy that so often attends the temporality of trauma is the material precondition of actually ending that trauma. This ultimately suggests that, for both thinkers, anything less than a new, revolutionary humanism equipped with an internationalist political project would betray the victims’ attempt to win back their dignity.
{"title":"Tortuous Time","authors":"Joe Weiss","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.5","url":null,"abstract":"This article compares the works of James Baldwin and Jean Améry, a\u0000 survivor of the Jewish Holocaust. It attempts to unpack the ethical and\u0000 political implications of their shared conception of the temporality of trauma.\u0000 The experiences of the victim of anti-Semitism and the victim of anti-Black\u0000 racism not only parallel one another, but their mutual incapacity to let go of\u0000 the injustice of the past also generates a unique ethico-political response. The\u0000 backward glance of the victim, the avowed incapacity to heal, as well as the\u0000 phantasmatic desire to reverse time all guide this unique response. Instead of\u0000 seeking forgiveness for the wrong done and declaring that all forms of\u0000 resentment are illegitimate, Baldwin and Améry show us that channeling\u0000 the revenge fantasy that so often attends the temporality of trauma is the\u0000 material precondition of actually ending that trauma. This ultimately suggests\u0000 that, for both thinkers, anything less than a new, revolutionary humanism\u0000 equipped with an internationalist political project would betray the\u0000 victims’ attempt to win back their dignity.","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":"45895778","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}
Having returned to the United States to work on his screenplay about Malcolm X, James Baldwin was interviewed for the Los Angeles Free Press in 1968. The interview offers a rare and valuable glimpse of Baldwin’s style of engagement with a new generation of radical Black activists whose current vogue Baldwin understood as valuable, whose new appraisal of history Baldwin had both helped to create and needed to learn from, and whose dangerous predicament Baldwin recognized and felt partly responsible for. Ed Pavlić provides a contextual and historical introduction to that interview, which is reproduced here with permission from the Free Press.
{"title":"They Came to See if I’m for Real","authors":"Ed Pavlič","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.13","url":null,"abstract":"Having returned to the United States to work on his screenplay about Malcolm X,\u0000 James Baldwin was interviewed for the Los Angeles Free Press in\u0000 1968. The interview offers a rare and valuable glimpse of Baldwin’s style\u0000 of engagement with a new generation of radical Black activists whose current\u0000 vogue Baldwin understood as valuable, whose new appraisal of history Baldwin had\u0000 both helped to create and needed to learn from, and whose dangerous predicament\u0000 Baldwin recognized and felt partly responsible for. Ed Pavlić provides a\u0000 contextual and historical introduction to that interview, which is reproduced\u0000 here with permission from the Free Press.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41667749","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}
The protagonists in James Baldwin’s 1957 short story “Sonny’s Blues” are constantly smiling and laughing. The story’s narrator notices these gestures and utilizes them to grasp at clarity when clarity seems out of reach. This article examines the narrator’s focus on this duo of facial expressions which reliably denote positive emotion. The relationship we maintain between our smiles and our laughter structures many of the narrator’s interactions with the story’s hero. More though, this relationship between smiles, laughter, and a kind of joy resembles the relationship Baldwin has described between the blues and the world this genre of music depicts.
{"title":"“A Kind of Joy”","authors":"James Nikopoulos","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.3","url":null,"abstract":"The protagonists in James Baldwin’s 1957 short story\u0000 “Sonny’s Blues” are constantly smiling and laughing. The\u0000 story’s narrator notices these gestures and utilizes them to grasp at\u0000 clarity when clarity seems out of reach. This article examines the\u0000 narrator’s focus on this duo of facial expressions which reliably denote\u0000 positive emotion. The relationship we maintain between our smiles and our\u0000 laughter structures many of the narrator’s interactions with the\u0000 story’s hero. More though, this relationship between smiles, laughter,\u0000 and a kind of joy resembles the relationship Baldwin has\u0000 described between the blues and the world this genre of music depicts.","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":"47535353","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}
The author reviews the 2021 production of James Baldwin’s play, The Amen Corner, as directed by Whitney White at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC. After situating the experience of engaging with Baldwin’s art through a constructivist approach to art-based education and learning design, the piece turns to considering the impact of various interpretive materials and the director’s artistic vision in the production. White’s decision to include an epigraph in the production leaves a notable impact, particularly in conversation with Baldwin’s essays, “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare” and “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.”
{"title":"Making Experiences Our Own","authors":"Ijeoma N. Njaka","doi":"10.7227/jbr.8.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.8.9","url":null,"abstract":"The author reviews the 2021 production of James Baldwin’s play,\u0000 The Amen Corner, as directed by Whitney White at\u0000 Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC. After situating the experience of\u0000 engaging with Baldwin’s art through a constructivist approach to\u0000 art-based education and learning design, the piece turns to considering the\u0000 impact of various interpretive materials and the director’s artistic\u0000 vision in the production. White’s decision to include an epigraph in the\u0000 production leaves a notable impact, particularly in conversation with\u0000 Baldwin’s essays, “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare” and\u0000 “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.”","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":"46888009","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 was a vocal critic of Hollywood, but he was also a cinephile, and his critique of film was not so much of the medium itself, but of the uses to which it was put. Baldwin saw in film the chance to transform both politics and art—if only film could be transformed itself. This essay blends readings of archival materials, literature, film, and print culture to examine three distinct modes in Baldwin’s ongoing quest to revolutionize film. First, I argue, literature served as a key site to practice being a filmmaker, as Baldwin adapted cinematic grammars in his fiction and frequently penned scenes of filmgoing in which he could, in effect, direct his own movies. Secondly, I show that starting in the 1960s, Baldwin took a more direct route to making movies, as he composed screenplays, formed several production companies, and attempted to work in both Hollywood and the independent film scene in Europe. Finally, I explore how Baldwin sought to change cinema as a performer himself, in particular during his collaboration on Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley’s documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1982). This little-known film follows Baldwin as he revisits key sites from the civil rights movement and reconnects with activist friends as he endeavors to construct a revisionist history of race in America and to develop a media practice capable of honoring Black communities.
{"title":"Another Cinema","authors":"Hayley O’Malley","doi":"10.7227/jbr.7.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.7.6","url":null,"abstract":"James Baldwin was a vocal critic of Hollywood, but he was also a cinephile, and his critique of film was not so much of the medium itself, but of the uses to which it was put. Baldwin saw in film the chance to transform both politics and art—if only film could be transformed itself. This essay blends readings of archival materials, literature, film, and print culture to examine three distinct modes in Baldwin’s ongoing quest to revolutionize film. First, I argue, literature served as a key site to practice being a filmmaker, as Baldwin adapted cinematic grammars in his fiction and frequently penned scenes of filmgoing in which he could, in effect, direct his own movies. Secondly, I show that starting in the 1960s, Baldwin took a more direct route to making movies, as he composed screenplays, formed several production companies, and attempted to work in both Hollywood and the independent film scene in Europe. Finally, I explore how Baldwin sought to change cinema as a performer himself, in particular during his collaboration on Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley’s documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1982). This little-known film follows Baldwin as he revisits key sites from the civil rights movement and reconnects with activist friends as he endeavors to construct a revisionist history of race in America and to develop a media practice capable of honoring Black communities.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45511844","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}
The distinguished critic Professor Cheryl A. Wall (1948–2020) was the Board of Governors Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Her path-breaking scholarship in two highly influential monographs, Women of the Harlem Renaissance (1995) and Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition (2005), helped to ensure that twentieth-century Black women writers were recognized and valued for their power, genius, and complexity. Her most recent book, On Freedom and the Will to Adorn: The Art of the African American Essay (2018), places the essay form at the center of African American literary achievement. Throughout her long career she supported and enabled Black students, and championed racial diversity and gender equality at every level of the university. An Associate Editor of James Baldwin Review, she was the most generous and astute of readers, as well as a wise editor. In this memorial section, fifteen colleagues, former students, and interlocutors share their remembrances and honor her legacy.
{"title":"Cheryl Wall, In Memoriam","authors":"C. Kaplan","doi":"10.7227/jbr.7.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.7.14","url":null,"abstract":"The distinguished critic Professor Cheryl A. Wall (1948–2020) was the Board of Governors Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Her path-breaking scholarship in two highly influential monographs, Women of the Harlem Renaissance (1995) and Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition (2005), helped to ensure that twentieth-century Black women writers were recognized and valued for their power, genius, and complexity. Her most recent book, On Freedom and the Will to Adorn: The Art of the African American Essay (2018), places the essay form at the center of African American literary achievement. Throughout her long career she supported and enabled Black students, and championed racial diversity and gender equality at every level of the university. An Associate Editor of James Baldwin Review, she was the most generous and astute of readers, as well as a wise editor. In this memorial section, fifteen colleagues, former students, and interlocutors share their remembrances and honor her legacy.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42827088","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}
William J. Maxwell, editor of James Baldwin: The FBI File (2017), interviews Bill V. Mullen on his 2019 biography, James Baldwin: Living in Fire, along the way touching on both Baldwin’s early internationalism and his relevance to the current wave of racial discord and interracial possibility in the United States.
{"title":"James Baldwin in the Fire This Time","authors":"W. Maxwell, Bill V. Mullen","doi":"10.7227/jbr.7.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.7.9","url":null,"abstract":"William J. Maxwell, editor of James Baldwin: The FBI File (2017), interviews Bill V. Mullen on his 2019 biography, James Baldwin: Living in Fire, along the way touching on both Baldwin’s early internationalism and his relevance to the current wave of racial discord and interracial possibility in the United States.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46099688","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 editors Douglas Field and Justin A. Joyce interview author and Baldwin biographer James Campbell on the occasion of the reissue of his book Talking at the Gates (Polygon and University of California Press, 2021).
{"title":"How Long Blues","authors":"D. Field, J. A. Joyce","doi":"10.7227/jbr.7.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.7.10","url":null,"abstract":"James Baldwin Review editors Douglas Field and Justin A. Joyce interview author and Baldwin biographer James Campbell on the occasion of the reissue of his book Talking at the Gates (Polygon and University of California Press, 2021).","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47176474","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}
Baldwin’s The Devil Finds Work (1976) has proven challenging since its publication because readers and critics have trouble classifying it. The challenge may be related to a common feature of Baldwin criticism, namely a tendency to compare late career works to early ones and to find them lacking: the experimental nature of later works of nonfiction like No Name in the Street (1972), The Devil Finds Work, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985) does not square easily with the more conventional essays that made Baldwin famous in his early years. I attempt to reframe The Devil Finds Work not through a comparison to other Baldwin essays, but rather through a comparison to his fiction, specifically the novel Giovanni’s Room. I posit that a greater appreciation for Devil can result from thinking of it as a story, specifically the story of a failed love affair.
{"title":"The Devil Finds Work","authors":"D. Q. Miller","doi":"10.7227/jbr.7.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.7.5","url":null,"abstract":"Baldwin’s The Devil Finds Work (1976) has proven challenging since its publication because readers and critics have trouble classifying it. The challenge may be related to a common feature of Baldwin criticism, namely a tendency to compare late career works to early ones and to find them lacking: the experimental nature of later works of nonfiction like No Name in the Street (1972), The Devil Finds Work, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985) does not square easily with the more conventional essays that made Baldwin famous in his early years. I attempt to reframe The Devil Finds Work not through a comparison to other Baldwin essays, but rather through a comparison to his fiction, specifically the novel Giovanni’s Room. I posit that a greater appreciation for Devil can result from thinking of it as a story, specifically the story of a failed love affair.","PeriodicalId":36467,"journal":{"name":"James Baldwin Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45103065","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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