Cleaver/Baldwin Revisited: Naturalism and the Gendering of Black Revolution

Mills, Nathaniel

doi:10.1353/san.2012.0002

Cited by 11 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Mills argues that Baldwin's novel, If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), "shows Baldwin revising black nationalism's separatist, heteropatriarchal, and masculinist tendencies while appropriating its revolutionary militancy. " 40 Mills contends that Baldwin served as a "midwife" to help deliver Black nationalism's message by recasting their politics in a less divisive light. While Mills's argument helpfully illustrates the distinction I was drawing earlier-Baldwin adapting revolutionary rhetoric to be less divisive certainly fits his non-revolutionary identity-I find the method by which Mills makes his argument to be even more relevant.…”

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The Warrior and the Poet

Binford

2020

James Baldwin Review

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Artists, scholars, and popular media often describe James Baldwin as revolutionary, either for his written work or for his role in the civil rights movement. But what does it mean to be revolutionary? This article contends that thoughtlessly calling James Baldwin revolutionary obscures and erases the non-revolutionary strategies and approaches he employed in his contributions to the civil rights movement and to race relations as a whole. Frequent use of revolutionary as a synonym for “great” or “important” creates an association suggesting that all good things must be revolutionary, and that anything not revolutionary is insufficient, effectively erasing an entire spectrum of social and political engagement from view. Baldwin’s increasing relevance to our contemporary moment suggests that his non-revolutionary tactics are just as important as the revolutionary approaches employed by civil rights leaders such as Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Warrior and the Poet

Binford

2020

James Baldwin Review

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“…Baldwin used Cleaver's attack as the occasion to work out a theory of black revolution and a self-theorization of black revolutionary art in Beale Street … the ultimate political goal of Cleaver's brand of revolutionary nationalism-the total transformation of a racist, capitalist society-was one Baldwin also aspired to in the late 1960s. 49 This willingness to reread such notorious public controversies as the row between Baldwin and Cleaver is also a way of addressing the critical misunderstanding of Baldwin's later work, for Mills argues that Beale Street is "not evidence of Baldwin's meek submission to the late-1960s radical turn in the black movement but of his creative and idiosyncratic participation in that turn." 50 Baldwin's place against the backdrop of a broader literary scene is the context for other critical articles on his work in conversation with that of his contemporaries.…”

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Trends in James Baldwin Criticism 2010–13

Miller

2017

James Baldwin Review

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The acceleration of interest in Baldwin's work and impact since 2010 shows no signs of diminishing. This resurgence has much to do with Baldwin-the richness and passionate intensity of his vision-and also something to do with the dedicated scholars who have pursued a variety of publication platforms to generate further interest in his work. The reach of Baldwin studies has grown outside the academy as well: Black Lives Matter demonstrations routinely feature quotations from Baldwin; Twitter includes a "Son of Baldwin" site; and Raoul Peck's 2016 documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, has received considerable critical and popular interest. The years 2010-13 were a key period in moving past the tired old formula-that praised his early career and denigrated the works he wrote after 1963-into the new formula-positing Baldwin as a misunderstood visionary, a wide-reaching artist, and a social critic whose value we are only now beginning to appreciate. I would highlight four additional prominent trends that emerged between 2010 and 2013: a consideration of Baldwin in the contexts of film, drama, and music; understandings of Baldwin globally; Baldwin's criticism of American institutions; and analyses of Baldwin's work in conversation with other authors.

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Introduction

2018

Me and My House

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I was a polite, slightly timid, first-time visitor then, yet I was also dying to open that box. I would not dare do it, however, which I now admit with some regret (I just brushed my hand against it), for I behaved as if I were in a museum, no matter that the house was far from being one (and will never become one, having since been lost to developers). I also yearned to pick up and feel the weight of the blue-green ceramic ashtray in the middle of the table that may have belonged to Baldwin. I could not be sure of that, of course, but still had to resist a power ful temptation to ask, maybe even beg, to take it with me. (Imagine having that fetish in my study!) Or that plain wooden whistle or, if not, perhaps the white and red kitchen towel lying next to it in a casual grouping on the table. Just one small token. .. something material to hold on to, to bring back from my visit. That temptation shamed me, but while in its grip I realized, too, that I could not bring myself to take anything unless it was given freely. But there was no one to grant me that wish, just shadows, imagined voices, and golden dust motes. An impor tant discovery I did not register in that moment, not until some years later, was that I had been caught up in a power ful and collective Baldwin-related sensation (if not affectation) that would travel through time and space. I was merely a pre de ces sor to, or perhaps also appeared after, some others who had come, and would continue coming, to the site of Baldwin's house to find that material something that reading his work alone could not provide. Those of us who were lucky and privileged enough to be able to make it to St. Paul-de-Vence were gripped by that same power ful need or longing to save something material from the site. 2 All of us-scholars, intellectuals, writers, readers, and simply those who love Baldwin-not only searched for a physical keepsake, but also yearned to fulfill a dream of being somehow connected to the writer in ways that go beyond the literary magic that takes place on the pages of his texts. On some level, we must all believe that the precious matter of that par tic u lar black life, which ended in that house in 1987, could somehow be sal vaged and preserved, especially in light of so few remnants of his existence, and the con spic u ous absence of a writer's house-museum devoted to him in his home country. 3 A few years ago, Baldwin's great-niece, Kali-Ma Nazarene, a talented photographer, traveled to the house and took haunting black-and-white pictures after it had been emptied of furniture, books, and all but a few broken chairs. Her trip to France had been set in motion by a dream in which the writer appeared to her and asked her to "meet me in Paris in two weeks, I can't stand it here." 4 Others, like Douglas Field, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, have written about the undeniable pull of this par tic u lar

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Cleaver/Baldwin Revisited: Naturalism and the Gendering of Black Revolution

Cited by 11 publications

References 24 publications

The Warrior and the Poet

The Warrior and the Poet

Trends in James Baldwin Criticism 2010–13

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