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1

Long Way Down: Making Space for an Empathic Understanding of African-American Adolescents through Literature

100%

Gray P.

Filoteknos

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2020

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issue 10

111-125

EN

There has long been a call for more diverse representation in literature for children and adolescents in the United States, for children who read multicultural literature can both see themselves reflected in the literature they read and be exposed to authors from diverse backgrounds who can serve as role models for them. One such author is Jason Reynolds, a prolific African-American author of books for adolescents. His most recent book, Long Way Down, is the poignant story of a fifteen year old African-American young man named Will who must make a life-and-death decision. While Will could be viewed as impulsive and potentially violent due to the saturation of gang-related activity in his neighborhood, Reynolds’ crafting of the text compels the reader to reconsider this assessment and instead take a more empathic stance toward Will. More specifically, the author’s compelling use of cultural compassion, poetic form, and time flexibility combine to draw the reader into a deeper understanding of the complexities of Will’s life. This compassionate treatment of the main character creates a narrative that is appealing to young African-American readers who thirst for books that reflect their lives and that unveil the challenges they face as they navigate the violence that often plagues urban life. Long Way Down also provides a meaningful and realistic counter-narrative to an all-to-widely accepted view of African-American males as dangerous and violent.

2

Creating the Norm: The African-American Literary Tradition

100%

Cogeanu O.

Linguaculture

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2012

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vol. 2012

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issue 2

23-30

EN

This paper starts from the premise that norm, in the sense of a prescriptive tradition based on a set of standards deriving from past practices and regulating future ones, is the result of an initial creative gesture; in other words, first there was creativity and creativity became the norm. Based on this premise, the paper looks at some of the earliest African-American pieces of writing to trace the itinerary from creativity to norm, thus witnessing the birth of the African-American literary tradition. To this end, the paper analyses the first published Black narrative and identifies the trope of the talking book as illustrating that original gesture which, by creatively incorporating the norm, marks the beginning of a new tradition. Then the paper follows subsequent early Black narratives and identifies the creative transgression of the norm illustrated by the Middle Passage as the process by which the new norm is established.

3

The Ambivalence of African-American Culture. The New Negro Art in the interwar period

67%

Pawłowska A.

Art Inquiry. Recherches sur les arts

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2014

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vol. XVI (XXV)

167-193

EN

Reflecting on the issue of marginalization in art, it is difficult not to remember of the controversy which surrounds African-American Art. In the colonial period and during the formation of the American national identity this art was discarded along with the entire African cultural legacy and it has emerged as an important issue only at the dawn of the twentieth century, along with the European fashion for “Black Africa,” complemented by the fascination with jazz in the United States of America. The first time that African-American artists as a group became central to American visual art and literature was during what is now called the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. Another name for the Harlem Renaissance was the New Negro Movement, adopting the term “New Negro”, coined in 1925 by Alain Leroy Locke. These terms conveyed the belief that African-Americans could now cast off their heritage of servitude and define for themselves what it meant to be an African-American. The Harlem Renaissance saw a veritable explosion of creative activity from the African-Americans in many fields, including art, literature, and philosophy. The leading black artists in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940 were Archibald Motley, Palmer Hayden, Aaron Douglas, Hale Aspacio Woodruff, and James Van Der Zee.

PL

Odnosząc się do kwestii marginalizacji w sztuce trudno nie wspomnieć o kontrowersjach ota-czających sztukę Afroamerykanów. W okresie kolonialnym, a także podczas krystalizacji ame-rykańskiej tożsamości narodowej, sztuka ta została odrzucona wraz z całością afrykańskiego dziedzictwa kulturowego. Uznanie znaczenia tej kultury i sztuki pojawiło się jako istotna kwe-stia dopiero u zarania XX wieku wraz z europejską modą na Czarną Afrykę uzupełnioną o jazzowe fascynacje z USA. Ważnym etapem poprzedzającym powstanie sztuki „Nowych Czarnych” były próby poszukiwania wyrazu dla afroamerykańskiej tożsamości, świadomie ignorujące różnicę w pigmentacji skóry. Były to wyraźne dążenia do znalezienia wspólnego głosu z białym etosem i tradycją amerykańskiej klasy średniej. Po raz pierwszy afroamerykańscy artyści jak grupa stali się dominującym elementem ame-rykańskiej sztuki wizualnej i literatury jako ruch “Renesansu z Harlemu” (Harlem Renaissance) w latach 1920 i 1930. Inną nazwą tego nurtu było określenie “Nowi Murzyni” (New Negro) ukuty w 1925 roku przez Alain Leroy Locke’a. Twórczości Afroamerykanów w tym okresie przeżywa prawdziwą eksplozję talentów w wielu dziedzinach, w tym sztuki, literatury i filo-zofii. Czołowi czarni artyści z lat 1920–1940 to: Archibald Motley, Palmer Hayden, Aaron Douglas, Hale Aspacio Woodruff, James Van Der Zee.

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1 Art Inquiry. Recherches sur les arts

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1 Gray P.

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Long Way Down: Making Space for an Empathic Understanding of African-American Adolescents through Literature

Creating the Norm: The African-American Literary Tradition

The Ambivalence of African-American Culture. The New Negro Art in the interwar period