Search results for ""Author Houston A. Baker""
Columbia University Press Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era
Houston A. Baker Jr. condemns those black intellectuals who, he believes, have turned their backs on the tradition of racial activism in America. These individuals choose personal gain over the interests of the black majority, whether they are espousing neoconservative positions that distort the contours of contemporary social and political dynamics or abandoning race as an important issue in the study of American literature and culture. Most important, they do a disservice to the legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and others who have fought for black rights. In the literature, speeches, and academic and public behavior of some black intellectuals in the past quarter century, Baker identifies a "hungry generation" eager for power, respect, and money. Baker critiques his own impoverished childhood in the "Little Africa" section of Louisville, Kentucky, to understand the shaping of this new public figure. He also revisits classical sites of African American literary and historical criticism and critique. Baker devotes chapters to the writing and thought of such black academic superstars as Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.; Hoover Institution senior fellow Shelby Steele; Yale law professor Stephen Carter; and Manhattan Institute fellow John McWhorter. His provocative investigation into their disingenuous posturing exposes what Baker deems a tragic betrayal of King's legacy. Baker concludes with a discussion of American myth and the role of the U.S. prison-industrial complex in the "disappearing" of blacks. Baker claims King would have criticized these black intellectuals for not persistently raising their voices against a private prison system that incarcerates so many men and women of color. To remedy this situation, Baker urges black intellectuals to forge both sacred and secular connections with local communities and rededicate themselves to social responsibility. As he sees it, the mission of the black intellectual today is not to do great things but to do specific, racially based work that is in the interest of the black majority.
£22.50
The University of Chicago Press Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy
In this explosive book, Houston Baker takes stock of the current state of Black Studies in the university and outlines its responsibilities to the newest form of black urban expression--rap. A frank, polemical essay, Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy is an uninhibited defense of Black Studies and an extended commentary on the importance of rap. Written in the midst of the political correctness wars and in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, Baker's meditation on the academy and black urban expression has generated much controversy and comment from both ends of the political spectrum.
£23.34
The University of Chicago Press Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing
Turning on inspired interpretations of Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Ntozake Shange, Workings of the Spirit weighs current critical approaches to black women's writing against Baker's own explanation of the founding, theoretical state of Afro-American intellectual history."Brilliant, and tenderly riveted to gratitude as an indispensable facet of analysis, Houston Baker arrives, yet again, bearing the loveliest flowers of his devotion and delight: thank God he's here!"—June Jordan
£24.24
The University of Chicago Press Afro-American Literary Study in the 1990s
Subject classification:- Black Studies; Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader
From Stuart Hall's classic study of racially-structured societies to an interview by Manthia Diawara with Sonia Boyce, a leading figure in the black British arts movement, the papers included here have transformed cultural studies through their sustained focus on the issue of race. Much of the book centres on black British arts, especially film, ranging from an historical overview of black British cinema to an evaluation of the costly burden on black artists of representing their communities. Other essays consider such topics as race and representation, and colonial and post-colonial discourse. This anthology should be of use as a resource for those interested in cultural studies. It also has much to offer students of anthropology, sociology, media and film studies, and literary criticism.
£27.87
