Conversations with Ishmael Reed

MELUS ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Elliot Fox ◽  
Bruce Dick ◽  
Amritjit Singh
Keyword(s):  
Ishmael Reed

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terrence T. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
American Literature ◽  
African American Literature ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Ishmael Reed ◽  
American Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter establishes the definition of comic rage and traces the history of humor and militancy in African American literature and history. It distinguishes between comic rage and satire, culminating in an examination of George Schuyler’s Black No More. It details how comic rage acts as an abjection (from Julia Kristeva) that breaks down simplistic ideas about race and representations that appear in literature and popular culture. While identifying Richard Pryor as the most recognizable employer of comic rage, this chapter also points to figures like Sutton Griggs, Ishmael Reed, and Malcolm X; who embody the multiple combinations of anger and comedy that appear in the chapters of the book. It outlines the contents of the chapters that trace the development of comic rage in relation to the various political and literary moments in American and African American life.

Ishmael Reed: Whose Radio Broke Down?

1972 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madge Ambler
Keyword(s):  
Ishmael Reed

The Satire of Black Post-Blackness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Ishmael Reed ◽  
Charles Johnson ◽  
Amiri Baraka ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
Editorial Cartoons ◽  
Paul Beatty

The fifth chapter argues that feeling “black post-black” is a disorienting situation that lends itself to satire. Crawford analyzes the ways in which satire has begun to define 21st century African American cultural productions as both blackness and whiteness are satirized. The satire of the Black Arts Movement is shown to be much more invested in satirizing whiteness as opposed to the 21st century post-black tendency to foreground the satirizing of blackness. In addition to the analysis of novels, drama, and poetry, this chapter also uncovers the role of satire in editorial cartoons included in Black World, one of the key journals of the Black Arts Movement. This chapter foregrounds the satire of Charles Johnson, Carlene Hatcher Polite, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Percival Everett, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, and others.

Ishmael Reed, Flight to Canada

1978 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Louis Gates
Keyword(s):  
Ishmael Reed

An Interview with Ishmael Reed

1978 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Gover
Keyword(s):  
Ishmael Reed

scholarly journals Chinatown Black Tigers: Black Masculinity and Chinese Heroism in Frank Chin's Gunga Din Highway

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-86
Author(s):  
Crystal S. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Ishmael Reed ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Frank Chin ◽  
Asian American Men ◽  
Traditional Masculinity

Images of ominous villains and asexual heroes in literature and mainstream American culture tend to relegate Asian American men to limited expressions of masculinity. These emasculating images deny Asian American men elements of traditional masculinity, including agency and strength. Many recognize the efforts of Frank Chin, a Chinese American novelist, to confront, expose, and revise such images by relying on a tradition of Chinese heroism. In Gunga Din Highway (1994), however, Chin creates an Asian American masculinity based on elements of both the Chinese heroic tradition and a distinct brand of African American masculinity manifested in the work of Ishmael Reed, an African American novelist and essayist known for his outspoken style. Rather than transforming traditional masculinity to include Asian American manhood, Chin's images of men represent an appropriation of elements from two ethnic sources that Chin uses to underscore those of Asian Americans. While deconstructing the reductive images advocated by the dominant culture, Chin critiques the very black masculinity he adopts. Ultimately he fails to envision modes of masculinity not based on dominance, yet Chin's approach also can be read as the ultimate expression of Asian American individualism.

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