Amiri Baraka : The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual / Jerry Watts.
2001
PS3552.A583 Z93 2001eb
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Title
Amiri Baraka : The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual / Jerry Watts.
Author
Watts, Jerry, author.
ISBN
9780814784556
Published
New York, NY : New York University Press, [2001]
Copyright
©2001
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource
Call Number
PS3552.A583 Z93 2001eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
818/.5409
Summary
Amiri Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones, became known as one of the most militant, anti-white black nationalists of the 1960s Black Power movement. An advocate of Black Cultural Nationalism, Baraka supported the rejection of all things white and western. He helped found and direct the influential Black Arts movement which sought to move black writers away from western aesthetic sensibilities and toward a more complete embrace of the black world. Except perhaps for James Baldwin, no single figure has had more of an impact on black intellectual and artistic life during the last forty years. In this groundbreaking and comprehensive study, the first to interweave Baraka's art and political activities, Jerry Watts takes us from his early immersion in the New York scene through the most dynamic period in the life and work of this controversial figure. Watts situates Baraka within the various worlds through which he travelled including Beat Bohemia, Marxist-Leninism, and Black Nationalism. In the process, he convincingly demonstrates how the 25 years between Baraka's emergence in 1960 and his continued influence in the mid-1980s can also be read as a general commentary on the condition of black intellectuals during the same time. Continually using Baraka as the focal point for a broader analysis, Watts illustrates the link between Baraka's life and the lives of other black writers trying to realize their artistic ambitions, and contrasts him with other key political intellectuals of the time. In a chapter sure to prove controversial, Watts links Baraka's famous misogyny to an attempt to bury his own homosexual past. A work of extraordinary breadth, Amira Baraka is a powerful portrait of one man's lifework and the pivotal time it represents in African-American history. Informed by a wealth of original research, it fills a crucial gap in the lively literature on black thought and history and will continue to be a touchstone work for some time to come.
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Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
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text file PDF
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Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2022)
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print 9780814793732
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Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1 Birth of an Intellectual Journey
2 Bohemian Immersions
3 An Alien among Outsiders
4 Rejecting Bohemia: The Politicization of Ethnic Guilt
5 The Quest for a Blacker Art
6 Toward a Black Arts Infrastructure
7 Black Arts Poet and Essayist
8 Black Revolutionary Playwright
9 Kawaida: Totalizing the Commitment
10 The Slave as Master: Black Nationalism, Kawaida, and the Repression of Women
11 New-Ark and the Emergence of Pragmatic Nationalism
12 Pan-Africanism
13 National Black Political Convention
14 Ever Faithful: Toward a Religious Marxism
15 The Artist as Marxist / The Marxist as Artist
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1 Birth of an Intellectual Journey
2 Bohemian Immersions
3 An Alien among Outsiders
4 Rejecting Bohemia: The Politicization of Ethnic Guilt
5 The Quest for a Blacker Art
6 Toward a Black Arts Infrastructure
7 Black Arts Poet and Essayist
8 Black Revolutionary Playwright
9 Kawaida: Totalizing the Commitment
10 The Slave as Master: Black Nationalism, Kawaida, and the Repression of Women
11 New-Ark and the Emergence of Pragmatic Nationalism
12 Pan-Africanism
13 National Black Political Convention
14 Ever Faithful: Toward a Religious Marxism
15 The Artist as Marxist / The Marxist as Artist
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author