A. Scott Henderson & Paul Lee Thomas 
James Baldwin 
Challenging Authors

‘The recognition and study of African American (AA) artists and public intellectuals often include Martin Luther King, Jr., and occasionally Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X. The literary canon also adds Ralph Ellison, Richard White, Langston Hughes, and others such as female writers Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker. Yet, the acknowledgement of AA artists and public intellectuals tends to skew the voices and works of those included toward normalized portrayals that fit wellwithin foundational aspects of the American myths refl ected in and perpetuated by traditional schooling. Further, while many AA artists and public intellectuals are distorted by mainstream media, public and political characterizations, and the curriculum, several powerful AA voices are simply omitted, ignored, including James Baldwin. This edited volume gathers a collection of essays from a wide range of perspectives that confront Baldwin’s impressive and challenging canon as well as his role as a public intellectual. Contributors also explore Baldwin as a confrontational voice during his life and as an enduring call for justice.’

Inhoudsopgave

Acknowledgements; Introduction: To Jimmy (and Jose), with Love; Conversion Calls for Confrontation: Facing the Old to Become New in the Work of James Baldwin; Why Theater, Mr. Baldwin?: The Amen Corner and Blues for Mister Charlie; Baldwin in South Africa; From James’ Portrait to Baldwin’s Room: Dismantling the Frames of American Manhood; Another Country: James Baldwin at “Home” (and) Abroad; Feeling in Radical Consciousness: James Baldwin’s Anger as a Critique of Capitalism; James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and the Jeremiad Tradition; James Baldwin: Artist as Activist and the Baldwin/Kennedy Secret Summit of 1963; Uplift Versus Upheaval: The Pedagogical Visions of Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin; The Agitating Power of Nonviolent Cool in “Going to Meet the Man”; James Baldwin vs. William Buckley, for the Soul of America: The 1965 Cambridge Union Debate; James Baldwin’s Gospel of Postcategorical Love: Transgressing and Transcending Boundaries; “Fame Is the Spur and––Ouch!”: James Baldwin’s Meditations on Fame in Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone; “Digging through the Ruins”: Just Above My Head and the Memory of James Arthur Baldwin; Author Biographies.