Post on 07-Jul-2015
PAUL GILROY’s
The Black
Atlantic:
Modernity and
Double
ConsciousnessQuinn T. Chipley
HUM 672-02 Spring, 2014
Paul Gilroy
PAUL GILROY
CURRICULUM VITAEBorn: London, 16.2.56. Nationality: British.
Addresses: Sociology Department, London School of Economics, Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE Current occupation: Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory, Sociology Department, London School of Economics and Political Science.
EDUCATION1978-1981 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), Birmingham University. My Ph.D. thesis: 'Racism, Class and The Contemporary Cultural Politics of 'Race' and Nation' was examined in Summer 1986. 1975-1978 Sussex University B.A. (Hons) 2.1 in American Studies. This degree involved final dissertations on the Sociology of Afro-American music and modes of masculinity in the radical novelists of the 30s.
1966-1973 University College School London
(Source:
http://www.uu.nl/SiteCollectionDocuments/GW/GW_Centre_Humanities/Vrede%20van%20Utrecht%20Leerstoel/CV%20Paul%20Gilroy.pdf )
And how Gilroy presents
himself in a less formal position:https://twitter.com/bungatuffie
Paul Gilroy
@bungatuffie
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging.
Soul rebel, dilettante, tele-ologist,
Londoner, utopian, dreamer-tribe
affiliate.
The well of Zohassadar [A1201]
Awards
1994 American
Book Award
Before
Columbus
Foundation
The Chapter One Title Says It:
He positions Himself and his Thesis as
Counterculture and not Subculture
Why? ―Any shift towards a postmodern condition should
not, however, mean that the conspicuous power of
these modern [i.e. – 18th and 19th Century revolutionary
transformations that included plantation slavery]
subjectivities and the movements they articulated has
been left behind. Their power has, if anything, grown,
and their ubiquity as a means to make political sense of
the world is currently unparalleled by the languages of
class and socialism by which they once appeared to
have been surpassed.‖ p. 2
Which, by Chipley’s interpretation, means that Gilroy had
given up on classical Marxist materialism as articulated in
the 19th and 20th century ―class/ nation‖ forms.
Why in 1993 Give Up on a Classical
Materialistic Dialectic to Refute Capitalism?
Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, 1979-1990, Conservative Party
Prime Minister, John Major, 1990-1997, Conservative Party
Falkland Island/ Malvinas War 1983: Britain wins and retains her colony.
Operation Desert Storm, 1990-199. the U.S. wins and reinstates Kuwait as its trading partner.
The USSR formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991.
China was in full-throttle capitalist market reform by 1993
Continental Radical Left (i.e.- French) attempts to defend Stalin and Mao had utterly failed by this time.
Other Contexts of this Text:
Toni Morrison’s Beloved wins the Pulitzer
Prize in 1988 after a campaign of letter
writing following the book’s failure to win
the National Book Award in 1987
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. defends 2 Live Crew
in the obscenity trail of 1990
Sailing Ships as the Metaphor Crossing the Atlantic (and remember that
Gilroy had done so often. His undergraduate
training is as an Americanist. He visited New
Haven, CT, a black town, as he calls it; where
he was dismayed to see that the Black
American music he was seeking was dead.)
This metaphor embraces the Middle Passage
This metaphor embraces the leading African
American mentors Delaney and Dubois
This metaphor embraces Black British music
Three Artifacts Essential to Chapter 1: The
Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of
Modernity
J.M.W. Turner’s Oil Painting, "Slavers
Throwing overboard the Dead and
Dying—Typhoon coming on“ or “The
Slave Ship” (pp. 13-15, 16)
North London bands; e.g. Soul II Soul and
Funki Dreds (pp. 15-16)
Martin Robison Delaney, Blake; or, The
Huts of America (pp. 19-40)
Turner’s painting: Slave Ship
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoCW80MEGXY
Soul II Soul: ―Keep On Moving‖
(Funki Dreds Mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peY5niPjZvg
Martin Delaney Robison: Blake
The text is available here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080708224553/http://et
ext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DelBlak.html
Chapter 6: ―Living Memory
and the Slave Sublime‖
Opposes Africentric Views(Chipley’s summary: Place will not be a place.)
Opposes Linear time model for Modernity (Chipley’s summary: Time will not be a point on a line)
Advances a hope of merged Musical/ sexual healing for both political and private pain (Gilroy turns to Percy Mayfield lyrics)
Returns to the Jewish Diaspora experience as instructive, but not determinative, for Black Diaspora experiences
Which ends up in a rather
strong Polemic of
VS.
Stanley Crouch Toni Morrison
FRACTALS: Gilroy’s Model ―The recursive nature of some patterns is obvious in
certain examples—a branch from a tree or a frond from
a fern is a miniature replica of the whole: not identical,
but similar in nature. Similarly, random fractals have been
used to describe/create many highly irregular real-world
objects. A limitation of modeling fractals is that
resemblance of a fractal model to a natural
phenomenon does not prove that the phenomenon
being modeled is formed by a process similar to the modeling algorithm.‖ (emphasis added)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal#Natural_phenomena_
with_fractal_features
(Mandelbrodt created the term fractals in 1975. The fractal model
became a strong vogue in science and art soon after.)
FRACTALS: SOME FORMATIONS ARE
(AND REMAIN) BIGGER THAN OTHERS
BUT!!!!!The “miracle” of fractals is that any view within any “microcosm” of the fractal will look like the view of the “macrocosm.” Any point in position is at the same relative distance from every other point in the surrounding environment.
If you are interested, look at this video on a basic fractal called the Koch Snowflake:https://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry/basic-geometry/koch_snowflake/v/koch-snowflake-fractal
Another Gilroy model: Rhizomorphic: Shaped
liked rhizomes (cognate to the word “root”)
The relationship of rhizomorphic and fractal modeling is obvious.
Fractal art
example
(source:
http://krzysztofmarcza
k.deviantart.com/art/
z7-b-3D-fractal-2-
138950342 )
BOOK REVIEWS OF GILROY’S The Black
Atlantic: Modernity and Double
Consciousness
http://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearc
h?Query=The+Black+Atlantic%3A+Moder
nity+and+Double+Consciousness&acc=o
n&wc=on&fc=off
(This link gets you to a JSTOR general listing
of several book reviews, the direct URL links
for five of which follow in this PowerPoint.)
Pure summary and description. No
real critique.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2076536?Search=
yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl
ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search
Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness
&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT
he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2
BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a
mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff
Critical of the way Gilroy
slights Baldwin and Morrison
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3042577?Search=
yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl
ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search
Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness
&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT
he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2
BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a
mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff
Notes deficits in Gilroy’s lack of treatment of women;
Gilroy’s apparent inability to transcend the hyper-
masculinities ensconced in the rap he defends
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4286351?Search=
yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl
ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search
Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness
&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT
he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2
BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a
mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff
Critiques absence of Africa; critiques Gilroy’s insufficient follow-thorough on the
use of the fractal model (especially in relationship to DuBois); “’ten miles wide
and an inch deep” quote from the harsh critics, though this review is less harsh.
Picks up well on the centrality of the comparison of the Jewish diaspora and the
Black diaspora Notes that the book is obviously unfinished, but still is important for
offering a method.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/30041559?Search
=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=
Black&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&searc
hText=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousnes
s&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT
he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2
BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a
mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff
Homes in on the inversion that Gilroy hopes to achieve: double consciousness is not a burden but is a privileged stance from which to watch and participate in the fluid reconstructions of culture and power; and the corollary that the Marx-Engels paradigm of nation-state, means of production, and proletariat are not linear but are problematic in the zig-zaging developments
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4289480?Search=
yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl
ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search
Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness
&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT
he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2
BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a
mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff
THE END