Contemporary af ri Can ameri Can Literature Blacks in the Diaspora FounDing eDitors Darlene clark hine John Mccluskey, Jr. David Barry gaspar eDitors herman l. Bennett kim D. Butler Judith a. Byfield tracy sharpley- Whiting Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis EditEd by LovaLEriE King and ShirLEy Moody- t urnEr Contemporary af ri Can ameriCan Literature thE Living Canon Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis This book is a publication of Manufactured in the united states of america indiana university press library of congress cataloging-in- office of scholarly publishing publication Data herman B Wells library 350 1320 e. 10th st. contemporary african american Bloomington, in 47405 literature : the living canon / edited by lovalerie king and shirley Moody- iupress.indiana.edu turner. pages cm Telephone orders 800- 842- 6796 includes bibliographical references and Fax orders 812- 855- 7931 index. isBn 978-0-253-00625-7 (cloth : alk. © 2013 by indiana university press paper) — isBn 978-0-253-00626-4 all rights reserved (pbk. : alk. paper) — isBn 978-0-253- 00697-4 (ebook) 1. american literature— no part of this book may be reproduced african american authors—history or utilized in any form or by any means, and criticism. 2. african americans— electronic or mechanical, in clud ing intellectual life. 3. african americans in photocopying and recording, or by any literature. i. king, lovalerie, editor of information storage and retrieval system, compilation. ii. Moody-turner, shirley, without permission in writing from the editor of compilation. publisher. The association of american ps153.n5c644 2013 university presses’ resolution on permis- 810.9’896073—dc23 sions constitutes the only exception to 2013016443 this prohibition. 1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the ameri can national standard for information sciences—permanence of paper for printed library Materials, ansi Z39.48- 1992. This volume is dedicated to the Ancestors and to those scholars, authors, and author/scholars who continue to carry the tradition forward. Contents Foreword \ Mat Johnson ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction \ Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody- Turner 1 Part 1. Politics of Pub lish ing, Pedagogy, and Readership 1 The point of entanglement: Modernism, Diaspora, and toni Morrison’s Love \ Houston A. Baker, Jr. 17 2 “The historical Burden That only oprah can Bear”: af ri can ameri can satirists and the state of the literature \ Darryl Dickson- Carr 41 3 Black is gold: af ri can ameri can literature, critical literacy, and twenty- First- century pedagogies \ Maryemma Graham 55 4 hip hop (feat. Women Writers): reimagining Black Women and agency through hip hop Fiction \ Eve Dunbar 91 5 street literature and the Mode of spectacular Writing: popular Fiction between sensationalism, education, politics, and entertainment \ Kristina Graaff 113 Part 2. Alternative Genealogies 6 portrait of the artist as a Young slave: Visual artistry as agency in the contemporary narrative of slavery \ Evie Shockley 137 7 Variations on the Theme: Black Family, nationhood, lesbianism, and sadomasochistic Desire in Marci Blackman’s Po Man’s Child \ Carmen Phelps 155 8 Bad Brother Man: Black Folk Fig ure narratives in comics \ James Braxton Peterson 168 viii · Contents Part 3. Beyond Authenticity 9 sampling the sonics of sex (Funk) in paul Beatty’s Slumberland \ L. H. Stallings 189 10 post- integration Blues: Black geeks and afro- Diasporic humanism \ Alexander G. Weheliye 213 11 The crisis of authenticity in contemporary af ri can ameri can literature \ Richard Schur 235 12 someday We’ll all Be Free: con sid er ing post- oppression Fiction \ Martha Southgate 255 Part 4. Peda gogic al Approaches and Implications 13 untangling history, Dismantling Fear: teaching tayari Jones’s Leaving Atlanta \ Trudier Harris 269 14 reading kyle Baker’s Nat Turner with a group of collegiate Black Men \ Howard Rambsy II 285 15 toward the Theoretical practice of conceptual liberation: using an af ri cana studies approach to reading af ri can ameri can literary texts \ Greg Carr and Dana A. Williams 302 Afterword \ Alice Randall 329 Annotated Bibliography \ Pia Deas and David F. Green, Jr. 333 Contributors 351 Index 359 Foreword Mat Johnson There is a fanpage on the popu lar networking site Facebook entitled “i hate reading.” it’s a very succinct title, and there’s not much else to the page. if you hate reading, you simply click the button that says “like,” and you can become a “Fan” and proudly show your unabashed support for illiteracy. as of this writing, the site has over 450,000 members, all of whom presumably overcame the irony of having to read the page in the first place. as a writer, i am of course disheartened by this lambasting of the written word. But as a human, i understand. Books are hard. My own art, the novel, is among the hardest. novels are incomplete in their pro- cess, forcing the reader to use her or his imagination to bring the text to life. tV shows don’t demand that; they do the work for you. Films as well, with millions of dollars spent to bring the creativity to life. people work hard, come home exhausted, they want the release, they want es- cape, they want someone else to carry the load. it’s no wonder every time i write a book someone says to me, “Maybe they’ll turn it into a movie.” That knowledge keeps me from attacking them. so why do novels matter? in this era of visual media, when one film’s advertising budget alone can dwarf the incomes of entire pub lish ing houses, what does the novel hope to offer? i ask myself this quite of en. i ask it every time i happen upon a beautiful book that’s been ignored, or as i struggle myself with the realities of trying to maintain my life as a writer. i’m asked this too, by writing students struggling to understand if the art they’re dedicating their lives to still has a place in the world. and i usually answer them with one word. Lolita. ix