African American Literature in the 21st Century and in the Context of American Literary History

Abstract： This paper is composed of two parts， respectively prepared by Prof. Jerry Ward， Jr. on Oct 6， 2021， for an online lecture to the faculty members and graduates of Central China Normal University， and on May 22， 2019， as a contribution to our journal of Foreign Language and Literature Research. Prof. Ward provides rich insights into the African American literature in the 21st century by exploring continuity and change， and the key features of the ongoing production， especially by referring to five 21st-century writers. Meanwhile Prof. Ward revisits the literary history of USA and casts new light on African American literature from the perspectives of ethos and ethnos. Thus this paper demonstrates some thought-provoking explorations into the major issues the studies of African American literature is confronted in the new century.

Key" words： African American literary; major features; literary history of USA; ethos; ethnos

Author： Jerry W. Ward， Jr.， a Richard Wright scholar， taught for 32 years （1970-2002） at Tougaloo College and for a decade （2002-2012） at Dillard University. He is the author of THE KATRINA PAPERS： A Journal of Trauma and Recovery （2008）， The China Lectures （2014）， Fractal Song： Poems （2016） and Blogs and Other Writing （2018）. He edited Trouble the Water： 250 Years of African-American Poetry （1997） and co-edited Redefining American Literary History （1990）， Black Southern Voices （1992）， The Richard Wright Encyclopedia （2008） and The Cambridge History of African American Literature （2011）. He lives and writes in New Orleans， Louisiana.

標(biāo)題：21世紀(jì)和美國(guó)文學(xué)史雙重語(yǔ)境中的美國(guó)非裔文學(xué)

內(nèi)容摘要：本文由杰瑞·沃德教授于2021年10月6日為華中師范大學(xué)在線講座文稿和他為《外國(guó)語(yǔ)文研究》雜志撰寫于2019年5月22日的短文組成。沃德教授以5位21世紀(jì)美國(guó)非裔作家為個(gè)案，考察了21世紀(jì)美國(guó)非裔文學(xué)的連續(xù)性與變化及其關(guān)鍵特征，并從倫理和民族維度重新審視了美國(guó)文學(xué)歷史，為美國(guó)非裔文學(xué)研究提供了新的視角。由此，本文呈現(xiàn)出作者對(duì)21世紀(jì)美國(guó)非裔文學(xué)研究重要議題的深度探索。

關(guān)鍵詞：美國(guó)非裔文學(xué)；主要特征；美國(guó)文學(xué)史；國(guó)家精神；民族

作者簡(jiǎn)介：杰瑞·沃德，美國(guó)理查德·賴特研究學(xué)者，曾先后在圖加盧學(xué)院、迪拉德大學(xué)從教32年，著有《卡特里娜札記》（2008）、《美國(guó)非裔文學(xué)批評(píng)：杰瑞·沃德教授中國(guó)演講錄》（2014）等，主編《攪渾這水：美國(guó)非裔詩(shī)歌250年》（1997）、《劍橋美國(guó)非裔文學(xué)史》（2011）等著作。

Twenty-first Century African American Literature

I am very much indebted to Professor Luo Lianggong for inviting me to share a few ideas about contemporary black writing in the United States of America. This virtual return to Central China Normal University is a great pleasure， because I have fond memories of how generous and hospitable were my Chinese colleagues during my earlier in-person visits between 2009 and 2016.

The topic is enormous. African Americans are now publishing more than they did in the 20th century. No single scholar can hope to be comprehensive in investigation of so vast a body of work. One can only hope to make judgments about a limited number of works， being fully aware that so much always remains to be said. This limitation is symptomatic of what we have to confront as we explore continuity and change， the key features of ongoing production.

In The Contemporary African American Novel （2012）， the Turkish scholar Lale Demirturk drew attention to the problematic space of neo-urban literature and its relationship to surveillance. What precisely are readers of contemporary black writing being asked to ponder and interpret？ One might reasonably guess the dominant theme is URBAN IDENTITY. In many of our recent novels， emphasis is placed on the city as a violent space， troubled with many social and economic issues that are predicated on inequity and/or social injustice. These issues， of course， necessitate maximum panoptical control. This emphasis is encouraged by the mainstream publishers， for they invest in forms of literature that promise to yield profit. The prized， aggressively promoted novels reflect degrees of stigma， the subject matter of Michelle Alexander’s seminal study The New Jim Crow： Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness （2010）. In response to the conditions of mainstream publishing， some African American fiction writers have opted to publish their works independently or through small， relatively unknown presses. This choice—hybrid publishing—puts the onus of promoting and distributing works on the writers.

We ought to recognize， however， that representations of urban identity are also critiques of cultural， social， and economic conditions. If they ignore non-urban identities， they do us a blatant disservice. The critiques are always incomplete as writers endeavor to manipulate readers and as readers struggle to make meaning of what is not familiar. Distortions which do a poor job of informing us about the totality of African American life blur our vision. Indeed， we begin to wonder if there is any meaningfulness in having expectations. And doubts regarding expectations are magnified by emerging technologies and the confusions they nurture. Critical work in literary discussions can discover no exit， no way out from the brutal assault of new narratives. And the “new narratives” are far less new than the market wants us to believe.

A few years ago， I proposed that scholars of 21st century African American literature would have to confront a surplus of postmodern options. “We have to select from methods （archival， biographical， visual， ethnographic， and quantitative） and methodologies （formalist， Marxist， structuralist， psychoanalytic， reception and reader-response， feminist， cultural， postmodern and post-colonial…）; we ought to pay attention to all the forms of African American oral， print， and multimedia expression that are somehow ‘literary’ but not yet designated ‘canonical’.” （The China Lectures， 3-4）

This inevitable confrontation is difficult enough for American critics （who think they have a grasp of rapidly changing American contexts）; it is doubly difficult non-Americans who have to learn the twists and turns of American English and its regionally and racially governed idioms as they manifest themselves in the United States of America.

The popular saying that nothing is new under the sun prevails. Much of what is called new is merely revisiting what is old in contemporary vocabularies， genres， and aesthetic perspectives.

We are compelled to deal with what the novelist and critic Charles Johnson called the need for a new narrative in many genres. “In the 21st century，” Johnson suggested， “we need new and better stories， new concepts ， and new vocabularies and grammar based not on the past but on the dangerous， exciting， and unexplored present， with the understanding that each is， at best， a provisional reading of reality， a single phenomenological profile that one day is likely to be revised， if not completely overturned.” （42）" [“The End of the Black American Narrative.” The American Scholar （Summer 2008）： 32-42 ]" Johnson was making a" political statement to secure his sense of aesthetics." We do need， however， that narratives based on the present rather than the past tend to dismiss how crucial a sense of history， of origins， is for writers and readers. It is on this point that Johnson and I would have civil disagreement as we stand our grounds on different prejudices. I am prejudiced， as some of my colleagues know， in favor of history both as a" process of experiencing changes" and records of change.

Currently， I am more interested in having productive conversation with the audience （question and answer） than in pontificating about literature. I can serve best by struggling to respond to questions from the audience." I shall comment briefly on four books that expose key elements and issues in contemporary black American fiction and poetry and shall add a coda on Gail Jones. Attention to drama， non-fiction， and film belongs to a separate lecture.

Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s widely acclaimed novel We Cast a Shadow （2019） demonstrates how 21st-century authors innovate or riff on the foundations of 20th-century legacies. Various elements in Ruffin’s novel rather silently announce how indebted he is to James Weldon Johnson （The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man） and Ralph Ellison （Invisible Man）. The unnamed protagonist/narrator in the novel is the black American father of a bi-racial son， a lawyer who lives in a post-racial city—that is not so post-racial as the narrator wishes it to be--a black lawyer in a prestigious white law firm who is preoccupied with ensuring that his son will fit and thrive as an assimilated citizen. There are hints throughout the novel that the city is a re-imagined， post-Katrina New Orleans. The father is convinced that he has to minimize the son’s birthmark， a dark spot on the son’s eyelid. Over time， the son’s complexion “stabilized to an olive tone” but the speck “spread to the ridge of his eyebrow， and eventually down the side of his face” （18）. The father is desperate in his mission to erase the birthmark. While the father talks a good game as far as civil rights is concerned， he is consumed with desire for assimilation. In the words of Roxane Gay， Ruffin’s novel is “a chilly， uncomfortable cautionary tale” focused on a probable a middle-class Black American mindset. The end of this novel resonates the concluding sentence of Johnson’s The Autobiography… “I cannot repress the thought that， after all， I have chosen the lesser part， that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage.” Tell us of prodigal fathers and sons. The nameless narrator， Nigel’s father ends his narrative with a most poignant message to his son：

“And if I could ask one small thing of you， Dear One， it would be that you occasionally think of your father—even after my body has returned to stardust， and I am nothing but a ghost of an angel in mossy chains， haunting endless grasslands in search of a spear tip sharp enough to finally cut this knot.” （322）

This closure is grist for the mills of those who specialize in psychoanalytic criticism， because the narrator confesses a failure that many non-Black Americans assume is an innate element of black masculinity. In this sense， Ruffin puts his readers on trial， asking if they can see the love that is embedded and hidden in a species of madness.

A part of what Ruffin explores is taken to yet another level in Keenan Norris’s novel The Confession of Copleand Cane （2021）. Norris complicates the idea of an African American male confession by using two narrators." Copeland confesses all of his anxieties about life in Oakland， California to Jacqueline， his trusted friend who truly understands that Copeland has “got to talk to someone， got to tell his story to someone （to everyone？）”（9）. Jacqueline’s responses to Copeland’s idiosyncratic and highly vernacular telling of “everything” about himself are at once sympathetic， analytic， very measured. Her narrations function to give balance to Copeland’s excessive preoccupation his life history and manufacturing of problems for himself and everyone else in his environment.

Copeland’s confession is replete with references that we immediately recognize—COVID-19， the flu， the Ghetto Flu of popular culture which， according to a footnote on page 70 is “A bullshit nonexistent disease that blacks blame for their self-created problems with poor diet， vitamin D deficiency， crime， history， and lack of exercise， now that blaming whitey for their problems is no longer believable because most white people fell for the *8.46 movement lies and are more pro-black than they are pro-American.” Norris upsets stereotypical critical expectations of what African American fiction ought to accomplish by displacing the ought-to-be with the actuality of what churns in the mind of a single individual who re-creates himself by way of confession. Readers eventually recognize Copeland is indeed an individual and not a representative figure of black masculinity. Norris very successfully explodes many of the self-deceptions or acts of toxic bad faith that so many readers embrace in the absence of severe critical thinking and skeptical thought.

Perhaps the destruction of bad faith is one of the major accomplishments of twenty-first century African American literature." Norris is more trenchant than Ruffin as far as destruction and deconstruction of bad faith go.

We find a similar effort to set different directions and to establish contemporary expectations in black poetry that is not overmuch concerned with crafting “academic” verse." Two examples are A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing： The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland （2019） by Da Maris B. Hill and Olio （2016） by Tyehimba Jess. These collections drive us to deal with old themes and to be amazed by how fresh what is ordinary and frequently neglected can be.

In the eight-page preface for A Bound Woman， Da Maris Hill writes at length about how her poems “detail the violent consequences Black women endure while engaged in individual and collective acts of resistance” （xi）. She emphasizes the historical contexts of many forms of resistance; she emphasizes that “the use of formal poetic structure is symbolic of the women’s physical confinement” and that the discipline of form acts “as a critique of the economic and democratic limitations” （xvi） women suffer throughout the world. Hill presents poetic testimony for women who “have been forgotten， shunned， and/or erased”; women who have been denied their humanity （xviii）.

In Olio， Tyehimba Jess is concerned with denial of humanity. What matters for him is his rigorous research on the history of the United States， especially the multi-angled histories of African American citizens. It is obvious that he absorbed what one of his mentors， Sterling D. Plumpp， stressed regarding an excavation of the ethos of blues and jazz， the recycling of music in different forms. This use of heritage is his heavy project. His combining of prose poetry， drawings and photographs， some folded pages， and musical referents creates a dense texture wherein he and his readers account for much that has escaped surveillance.

The books by Hill and Jess are examples of the intense anxiety which is a primary characteristic of twenty-first century African American literature." It is fair to say writers and their readers are figuratively incarcerated by anxiety.

A Coda on Gayl Jones. According to emerging commentaries， Gayl Jones’s new novel Palmares （2021） circles back to her critically acclaimed first novel Corregidora （1975）. The publication of Corregidora was a watershed moment in American literary history. It was also evidence of how Jones followed her mother Lucille and her maternal grandmother Amanda Wilson in fearlessly crafting and setting controversial directions for American literature. One needs to ponder either briefly or at some length her achievement in poetry， fiction and non-fiction.

One should give attention to her informed， brilliant critical meditations on literature in Liberating Voices： Oral Tradition in African American Literature （Harvard University Press， 1991）." In the “Postscript” Jones wrote，

The voices of the less powerful group， ‘the other，’ always must free themselves from the frame of the more powerful group， in texts of self-discovery， authority， and wholeness.

To liberate their voices from the often tyrannic frame of another’s outlook， many world literatures continue to look to their own folklores and oral modes for forms， themes， tastes， conceptions of symmetry， time， space， detail and human values. （192）.

She positioned herself and many other writers by exposing the functions of languages in" escaping from the infamy of “double consciousness.” Admittedly， the trope was a rhetorical godsend for Dr. Du Bois; in the current century， it is merely toxic， especially in discussions of African American literatures. Jones told us what to listen for.

Imani Perry listened well in writing “She Changed Black Literature. Then She Disappeared” （NY Times Magazine， October 3， 2021. Perry provides copious details about Jones’s life and works in building a strong case for the necessity of reading the poetry， fiction， and non-fiction. It is of more than casual importance that Perry notes severe， negative criticisms of Jones’s works place her “alongside Richard Wright， who had become persona non grata among the Black literati for creating Bigger， a Black man without the capacity of love or redemption.” June Jordan’s review of Eva’s Man （1976） wounded Jones， but the wound did not deter Jones from writing about the implacable violence of human histories and the pathologies violence sponsors in daily life. Both Wright and Jones are persistent in a quest for a truth. They do not pander to our desires for hope and happiness; they force us to be wiser about existential dimensions of the worlds we inhabit.

Jerry W. Ward， Jr.

October 6， 2021

Literary History USA： Ethos and Ethnos

In the post-World War II and Cold War years" （roughly 1945-1991）， it was “normal” for scholars and students of American literature to assume that they knew what truly described American literature as a national literature. Their indispensable source of information was the Literary History of the United States （1947） and its subsequent editions." In their “Address to the Reader，” the editors of that particular history aptly noticed that “[l]iterature can be used， and has been magnificently used by Americans， in the service of history， of science， of religion， or of political propaganda. It has no sharp boundaries， though it passes through broad margins from art into instruction or argument…. History as it is written in this book will be a history of literature within the margins of art but crossing them to follow our writers into the actualities of American life” （xxi）. In some degree， the editors accepted the dictates about formalism and the intrinsic value of the literary work that John Crowe Ransom had articulated in The New Criticism （1941）， but they also provided subtle hints regarding a necessary transgression of those dictates if scholars really engaged history.

Ransom’s ideas were later reaffirmed in R. S. Crane’s Critical and Historical Principles of Literary History （1967）， but those relatively conservative gestures of thinking about history were called into question by the radical flames of Black Fire： An Anthology of Afro-American Writing （1968）， edited by LeRoi Jones and Larry Neal， which gave new meanings to what passing “through broad margins from art into instruction or argument” would entail. Black Fire cast light on the matters of ethos （guiding beliefs of a person， group， or institution） and ethnos （an ethnic group） to which Literary History of the United States （LHUS） gave scant attention.

The LHUS editors assumed that in dealing with how a national literature evolved， “Americans” referred primarily to white males. Women of any color and United States citizens in the numerical minority， despite their contributions to the evolving， were relegated to the margins of attention and significance. They could be passed over Using the machinery of patriotic， masculine rhetoric， the editors propagated the exclusionary dominance of the white male gaze in the construction of history. To understand the implications of their choices， scholars of American literature and its ethnic components have to study such works as Redefining American Literary History （New York： Modern Language Association， 1990）， edited by A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff and Jerry W. Ward， Jr.; Michael Denning’s The Cultural Front： The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century （London： Verso， 1997）; Michael Szalay’s New Deal Modernism： American Literature and the Invention of the Welfare State （Durham： Duke University Press， 2000）， and Robert Genter’s Late Modernism： Art， Culture， and Politics in Cold War America （Philadelphia： University of Pennsylvania Press， 2010）. It is disingenuous for scholars in the transnational communities of theory， historiography， and criticism to think that writing the literary history （or actually， the literary histories） of the United States has any validity or credibility if ethos and ethnos are minimized， or if the writers of literary history try to escape from the vexed dynamics of history as a process.

The culture wars from the 1980s to the present complicate ideas about what is “normal” in literary studies， and those cultural debates bring to the foreground matters of ethos and ethnos to which the editors of Literary History of the United States accorded the slightest attention or chose to ignore. The debates magnify the dialectics of knowing. It is simply unethical for male and female scholars to deny in 2019 that they are themselves at once “ethnic” as well as “subjective” and “gendered.” The point is made dramatically （albeit tacitly） by Gordon Hutner， founder and editor of the journal American Literary History， a riff on the late Ralph Cohen’s internationally influential journal New Literary History. I quote verbatim Hutner’s recent call for a panel on reconceptualizing American literary history①②③④：

“Exiles， émigrés， Refugees”

Edward Said notes that “modern Western culture is in large part the work of exiles， émigrés， refugees.”" How might we reconceive American literary history from the point of view of such figures？" What are the cultural， aesthetic， and affective dimensions of such displaced subjectivity？ If it is true， as Thomas Nail suggests， that the migrant has become the political figure of our time， how does this development lead us to reimagine and reconfigure identity， citizenship， and civil rights in the nineteenth century？ The proposed panel invites new ways of historicizing and theorizing statelessness， political and economic displacement， mobility， shelter， war， and precarity." Does migration generate new forms of cultural memory？ How do we apprehend these forms， and their formations， that rethink such issues as agency and ambivalence， the border and borderlands， the camp， the commons， detention， dwelling， empathy， nostalgia， the right to movement， the right to return." Papers may consider how cultural forms articulate social and political change; how histories of race manifest in the moment; how regimes of surveillance and capture give rise to practices of counter-visuality. Participants may also be interested in recovering longer histories of current “crises” over migration and consider ethics of memory and social justice beyond humanitarianism.

Please send abstracts to Gordon Hutner （hutner@illinois.edu） by July 1.

Hutner’s intervention is timely， and his using Said’s claim as a springboard reminds us just how relevant Said’s ideas are for examining the diverging arguments that characterize trends in contemporary scholarship." We may recall that in Culture and Imperialism （New York： Alfred A. Knopf， 1993）， Said asserted：

Paradoxically， the United States， as an immigrant society composed of many cultures， has a public discourse more policed， more anxious to depict the country as free from taint， more unified around one iron-clad major narrative of innocent triumph." This effort to keep things simple and good disaffiliates the country from its relationship with other societies and peoples， thereby reinforcing its remoteness and insularity. （314-315）

No doubt， Hutner would have scholars and students create meaningful questions about why and how a nation’s literary history is reconfigured， about the motives for reconfiguring， and respond to those questions by way of critical thinking about the manipulation of cultural memories and the impact it has on knowledge and interpretation of the nexus constituted by literature and politics. Public discourse warrants sustained interrogation of the ethos and ethnos of history， particularly literary history，" as a narrative process that enables consciousness and cognition." What matters greatly in 2019 is knowing， as precisely as might be possible， what literary history donates to our practice of everyday life.

Jerry W. Ward， Jr. May 22， 2019.

Notes

①②③④ E-mail message by Gordon Hutner to Derrick Spires dated on May 3， 2019 at 12：26：42 PM CDT， with the Subject： C19 cfp.

Works Cited

Said， Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York： Alfred A. Knopf， 1993.

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE： A Selected Bibliography

This brief listing is representative of the diversity of contemporary African American writing， a diversity that reflects the complexity of genres used for cultural expressions.

Jerry W. Ward， Jr September 22， 2021

Braggs， Earl S. A Boy Named Boy： Growing Up Black in Whitetown during the 1960s. Berkeley， CA： Wet Cement Press， 2021.

Coates， Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. New York： Spiegel amp; Grau， 2015.

---. We Were Eight Years in Power. New York： One World， 2017.

DeBerry， Kelly Harris. Freedom" Knows My Name. New Orleans， LA： Xavier Review Press， 2020.

Ellis， Thomas Sayers. Skin， Inc. Minneapolis： Graywolf Press， 2010.

Evans， Freddi W. Congo Square. Lafayette： U of Louisiana at Lafayette Press， 2011.

Finny， Nikky. Head Off amp; Split. Evanston， IL： TriQuarterly Books， 2011.

Hill， DaMaris B. A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing. New York： Bloomsbury， 2019.

Horton， Randall. Hook： A Memoir. New York： Augury Books， 2015.

Jackson， Angela. Roads， Where There Are No Roads. Evanston， IL： Triqarterly Books， 2017.

Jeffers， Honoree Fanonne. The Age of Phillis Wheatley. Middletown， CT： Wesleyan UP， 2020.

---. The Love Song of W. E. B. DuBois. New York： Harper， 2021.

Jess， Tyehimba. Olio. Seattle： Wave Books， 2016.

Laymon， Kiese. Heavy： An American Memoir. New York： Scribner， 2018.

---. Long Division. Chicago： Bolden， 2013.

Marsalis， Simeon. As Lie Is to Grin. New York： Catapult， 2017.

Moore， Lenard D. The Geography of Jazz. Eugene， OR： Mountains amp; Rivers Press， 2018.

---. Long Rain. Berkeley： Wet Cement Press， 2021.

Mosley， Walter. John Woman. New York： Atlantic Monthly Press， 2018.

Norris， Keenan. Brother and the Dancer. Berkeley CA：" Heyday，" 2013.

---. The Confession of Copeland Cane. Los Angeles： The Unnamed Press， 2021.

Ruffin， Maurice Carlos. We Cast a Shadow. New York： One World， 2019.

---. The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You. New York： One World， 2021.

Salaam， Kalamu ya. Be About Beauty. New Orleans： UNO Press， 20j18.

Sexton， Margaret Wilkerson. A Kind of Freedom. Berkeley： Counterpoint， 2017.

Shaik， Fatima. What Went Missing and What Got Found. New Orleans： Xavier Review Press， 2015.

Smith， Clint. Counting Descent. Los Angeles： Write Bloody Press， 2016.

Trethewey， Natasha. Beyond Katrina. Athens： U of Georgia Press， 2010.

Ward， Jesmyn. Salvage the Bones. New York： Bloomsbury， 2011.

---. Sing， Unburied Sing. New York： Scribner， 2017.

---. Where the Line Bleeds. Chicago： Agate， 2008.

---. The China Lectures. Wuhan， China： Central China Normal UP， 2014.

Whitehead， Colson. Harlem Shuffle. New York： Doubleday， 2021.

Wilderson III， Frank B. Afropessimism. New York： Liveright， 2020.

Wilkinson， Crystal. The Birds of Opulence. Frankfort： University of Kentucky Press， 2016.

---. Perfect Black. Frankfort： University of Kentucky， 2021.

*Wright， Richard. The Man Who Lived Underground. New York： Library of America， 2021.

[This edition restores the novel as Wright initially wished for it to be published， and it has special relevance for the twenty-first century ]

責(zé)任編輯：羅良功