Critical Essays on John Edgar Wideman

by Tusmith, Bonnie; Byerman, Keith Eldon

• ISBN13: 9781572334694
• ISBN10: 157233469X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-15
• Publisher: Univ of Tennessee Pr

Summary

John Edgar Wideman is one of the most prominent African American writers today. He is the first author to have been awarded the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice--once in 1984 for Sent for You Yesterday and again in 1990 for Philadelphia Fire. His memoir, Fatheralong, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Yet, despite all of Wideman's accolades and renown, there are only three full-length studies on his work to date. TuSmith's and Byerman's Critical Essays on John Edgar Wideman takes a bold step in expanding Wideman scholarship. This volume is an indispensable study of Wideman's oeuvre, covering the full range of his career by addressing the key features of his fiction and nonfiction from 1967 to the present. The essays in this book reflect the most advanced thinking on Wideman's prolific, extraordinary art. The collection features at least one article on each major work and includes the voices of both well-established and emerging scholars. Though their critical perspectives are diverse, the contributors place Wideman squarely at the center of contemporary African American literature as an exemplar of postmodern approaches to literary art. Several position Wideman within the context of his predecessors--Wright, Baldwin, Ellison--and within a larger cultural context of music and collective history. The essays examine Wideman's complex style and his blending of African and Western cosmologies and aesthetics, the use of personal narrative, and his imaginative revisioning of forgotten historical events. These insightful analyses cover virtually every stage of Wideman's career and every genre in which he has written. A detailed bibliography of Wideman's work is also included.Informed yet accessible, this collection will be a rich source of information and intellectual stimulus for teachers, students, and scholars in American and African American literature, as well as general readers interested in Wideman's multilayered and challenging texts.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
The Value of Reading Wideman	vii
BONNIE TUSMITH
Wideman's Career and Critical Reception	x
KEITH E. BYERMAN
Summaries of Essays	xii
PART 1. NON-FICTION
"Familiar Strangers": The Quest for Connection and Self-Knowledge in Brothers and Keepers	3	(14)
EUGENE PHILIP PAGE
Figures of Life in Fatheralong	17	(14)
CLAUDE FERNAND YVON JULIEN
Of Basketball and Beads: Following the Thread of One's Origins	31	(12)
JACQUELINE BERBEN-MASI
Race, Representation, and Intersubjectivity in the Works of John Edgar Wideman	43	(14)
HEATHER RUSSELL ANDRADE
Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Jazzing Story in Hoop Roots	57	(14)
KAREN F. JAHN
"Traveling Here Below": John Edgar Wideman's The Island: Martinique and the Strategy of Melancholy	71	(22)
GERALD W. BERGEVIN
PART 2. FICTION
Queering Blackness: Race and Sexual Identity in A Glance Away and Hurry Home	93	(14)
KEITH E. BYERMAN
"A Lynching in Blackface": John Edgar Wideman's Reflections on the Nation Question	107	(20)
ASHRAF H.A. RUSHDY
Homewood's "Music of Invisibility": John Edgar Wideman's Sent for You Yesterday and the Black Urban Tradition	127	(18)
DENISE RODRIGUEZ
Philadelphia Fire and The Fire Next Time: Wideman Responds to Baldwin	145	(16)
LESLIE W. LEWIS
The Individual and the Collective: Threatening Blackness in Wideman's Philadelphia Fire	161	(14)
STACEY L. BERRY
"All My Father's Texts": John Edgar Wideman's Historical Vision in Philadelphia Fire, The Cattle Killing, and Fatheralong	175	(16)
TRACIE CHURCH GUZZIO
The Funky Novels of John Edgar Wideman: Odor and Ideology in Reuben, Philadelphia Fire, and The Cattle Killing	191	(14)
STEPHEN CASMIER
"Ill Seen Ill Said": Tropes of Vision and the Articulation of Race Relations in The Cattle Killing	205	(16)
JENNIFER D. DOUGLAS
"And the Arc of His Witness Explained Nothing": Black Flanerie and Traumatic Photorealism in Wideman's Two Cities	221	(22)
TYRONE R. SIMPSON II
RETROSPECTIVE
Optical Tricksterism: Dissolving and Shapeshifting in the Works of John Edgar Wideman	243	(16)
BONNIE TUSMITH
Bibliography	259	(8)
MARK J. MADIGAN
Contributors	267	(2)
Index	269