Review: Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora By Henry Louis Gates, Jr. || Amy Sall

amysall:

Operating as a road map of sorts, traversing through periods of cultural studies and citing an impressive list of theorists and scholars along the way, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes the reader on a journey through African and diasporic cultural and theoretical concepts.

Gates begins the book by setting the scene for his readers at the First International Conference of Negro Writers and Artists, in the Sorbonne’s Amphiteater Descartes in Paris. This opening leads into an exploration of the rift between Richard Wright and James Baldwin, and their opposing ideologies concerning Africa and Colonialism. Gates provides examples of Wright’s championing of Western ideologies, namely Enlightenment, as a means to better the Negro. Wright staunchly asserts, “What is good for Europe is good for all mankind” (5). It is this controversial declaration, along with Wright’s other notions on the benefits of colonialism and the need to abandon tradition, which pins James Baldwin against him. Gates also mentions that though Wright and his book, Black Boy were embraced by Leopold Senghor, perhaps because of a shared element of “cosmopolitanism” between these figures, Wright , as Gates puts it “recoiled at the embrace” (13).  It was this recoiling that was emblematic of Wright’s self-positioning as a “Western black” and not African.

The decision to begin the book this way, using anecdotes to explicate the nuances of blackness and identity in relation to colonialism, makes for an interesting entryway into various colonial and post-colonial ideologies put forth by renowned figures such as Frantz Fanon, and contemporary theorists such as Benita Parry. This particular anecdote of Richard Wright made for a surprisingly smooth transition into an exploration of how cultural studies evolved into cultural politics. It is in this section where Paul Gilroy, author of the seminal text, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and the Double Consciousness is cited heavily as part of a discussion on race, blackness and belonging in England.  Gates also cites in this section Robert Young, editor of the Oxford Literary Review, as saying the invention of cultural politics was a “means of resisting forms of colonial and neo-colonial political power…” (41). Young also claims Frantz Fanon is one of the inventors of cultural politics. This then leads Gates to discuss the radical beliefs of Fanon in a chapter aptly titled, “Critical Fanonism.” The rest of the book continues onto a discussion of the culture wars, and the concept of “othering.”

It may seem, at first, this road map that Gates creates takes the reader on a journey through lands that may perhaps be too vast. Arguably, the number of theories and theorists mentioned may be overwhelming to the reader. However, the historical anchoring of each cultural studies moment and context behind each theorist mentioned, helps the reader navigate the array of concepts quite fluidly. He commits to citing a plethora of wide ranging references, though does it carefully, so as not to lose the reader in an abyss of theories and noted scholars. It is no easy feat to seamlessly weave through periods and concepts such as Enlightenment and Multiculturalism, with stops in between including identity politics, African cinema, and culture wars. Gates successfully walks his readers through these ideologies (in the space of less than 200 pages) through historical context, anecdotes, and even disperses bits of humor and wit throughout (which the reader can appreciate).

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