"Under the Sign of the Middle Passage: Black Solidarity Reimagined." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 65, no. 2 (Summer 2023): 115–39.
My new article "Under the Sign of the Middle Passage" appears as the lead piece in the Summer 2023 issue of Texas Studies in Literature and Language.
The argument of the article, in brief, is that the Middle Passage is now the central metonym for life and death in Black arts and cultural criticism, but that wasn't always the case. Starting in the mid-20th century academic slave trade studies actually returned the Middle Passage to public consciousness after a long period of neglect. That the topic achieved such centrality, however, is due to the use Black writers made of it since the seventies to confront intraracial tensions that arose in the post–civil rights era. The ship's hold was transformed into an image of solidarity.
I trace this argument through literary criticism, historiography, and the tradition of the Middle Passage poem from its modern originator, Robert Hayden, to contemporary poets Primus St. John and Nathaniel Mackey.
Thanks to the editors and reviewers at TSLL for accepting the piece and putting it as the lead. And a special thank you to the wonderful anonymous copyeditor whose perceptive edits and suggestions reminded me what a lost art copyediting is! You can read my article here.
Comentários