Shaker Heights: Struggle for Integration Stuart Math Henry Louis Gates David Hammack Lorraine Hammack Kemmeth Jackson

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
Paul H. Mattingly
Keyword(s):  
Henry Louis Gates ◽  
Shaker Heights

Scriptures, Myths, and Power: The Bible at Work

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Burton Mack
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Linguistic Style ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Cultural Function ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Henry Louis Gates ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Christian Myth ◽  
American Society

The introduction to Burton Mack's extended conversation with Vincent Wimbush and Institute for Signifying Scripture, Claremont Graduate University. The conversation revolves around the cultural function of the Bible as Christian myth in American society, and the African-American domestication of the Bible as their Scripture. The essay explores the differences between the Bible as myth in the dominant Euro-American tradition, and the Bible as Scripture in African-American experience. Drawing upon the work of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the concept of "signifying" describes a remarkable linguistic style characteristic of African-American mentality and culture.

Scriptures, Myths, and Power: The Bible at Work - Chapter Five

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113
Author(s):  
Burton Mack
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Linguistic Style ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Cultural Function ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Henry Louis Gates ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Christian Myth ◽  
American Society

Part 6 of Burton Mack's extended conversation with Vincent Wimbush and Institute for Signifying Scripture, Claremont Graduate University. The conversation revolves around the cultural function of the Bible as Christian myth in American society, and the African-American domestication of the Bible as their Scripture. The essay explores the differences between the Bible as myth in the dominant Euro-American tradition, and the Bible as Scripture in African-American experience. Drawing upon the work of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the concept of "signifying" describes a remarkable linguistic style characteristic of African-American mentality and culture.

Misreading Morrison, Mishearing Jazz: A Response to Toni Morrison's Jazz Critics

1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALAN MUNTON
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Jazz Age ◽  
Parallel Argument ◽  
Prose Style ◽  
Henry Louis Gates ◽  
Jazz Musician ◽  
Radical Revision

Toni Morrison's fiction, we have been repeatedly told, embodies features taken from jazz. Her books have a “jazzy prose style,” express a “jazz aesthetic,” or are “literary jazz.” Critics propose that jazz riffs can be found in her writing, and that she improvises in prose in a manner comparable to an improvising jazz musician. None of this seems to me to be true. To establish a relationship between music and prose fiction would be difficult under any circumstances. It is all the more difficult when the critics concerned show themselves to be unaware of the basic formal structures of jazz. The riff is foregrounded because it is the only feature of jazz that can be compared to prose (because both may include repetitions). It is a more serious objection that Rice, Small-McCarthy, Berrett, and others, including James A. Snead and Henry Louis Gates Jr., consistently ignore structure, harmony, and melody in favour of rhythm. The reason for this is that jazz rhythm can be traced back to its African origins, whereas structure, harmony, and melody require an engagement with European sources. Clearly, an ideology of authenticity is at work here. Yet a parallel argument is willing to relate Morrison's fiction to its European origins. For, if her novel Jazz is, as Rinaldo Walcott indicates, a rewriting of Scott Fitzgerald's version of the “Jazz Age,” then that rewriting or radical revision must occur by reference to a form – the novel – that originated in Europe and is (in the cited instance) a product of white America.

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