← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Julian the Apostate
Thread ID: 17421 | Posts: 12 | Started: 2005-03-20
2005-03-20 06:39 | User Profile
Findings of Arkansas student at Brandeis prompt re-evaluation of 19th century writer
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Scholars will likely pay less attention to 19th century New England author Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins now that an Arkansas student at Brandeis University has discovered the woman wasn't black, a leading African-American studies figure says.
[url]http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/special4/article.adp?id=20050316053909990001[/url]
2005-03-20 17:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE][url]http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/special4/article.adp?id=20050316053909990001[/url]
[FONT=Century Gothic][SIZE=4]Findings of Arkansas student at Brandeis prompt re-evaluation of 19th century writer[/SIZE][/FONT]
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - [B]Scholars will likely pay less attention to 19th century New England author Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins now that an Arkansas student at Brandeis University has discovered the woman wasn't black[/B], a leading African-American studies figure says.
The discovery by Holly Jackson of Little Rock, a 1998 graduate of Mount St. Mary's Academy, has set the literary-criticism crowd abuzz.
Jackson, now studying toward her doctorate at Brandeis, said the surprising information about Kelley-Hawkins turned up just a few months after she began routine research for a brief history of the author that was to appear in an Oxford University Press book, "African American National Biography."
The assumption before now that Kelley-Hawkins was black may be based on a photograph of the author that appears in her novel "Megda," which is ambiguous. But no one is sure of the origin of that classification.
Jackson, 24, said she has long been interested in late 19th century literature. She said she became intrigued by Kelley-Hawkins when she was writing a senior thesis.
"I thought it was strange that when you would look her up in books, instead of dates they'd have question marks after her name," Jackson said. "It seemed like more was crying out to be discovered."
So she set out to discover it. The result was a surprise, Jackson said. "I had no reason to doubt that she was black," the Arkansas scholar said.
She said assistance from Richard Nobel, a rare-books librarian at Brown University, helped lead her to documents and microfilm at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. There, she found that Kelley-Hawkins' family left blank a survey field on the Massachusetts 1860 census about race, a practice that indicated the family was white.
The evidence was even clearer for members of the family in Rhode Island, where Kelley-Hawkins and all her relatives marked a "W" for white.
[B]Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of Harvard's Department of African and African-American Studies, has told editors of Insidehighered.com that there are better 19th century women writers than Kelley-Hawkins, so scholars will be less likely to pay attention to her now that it's known she wasn't black.
Her primary value, Gates said, was as a black writer. [/B] Because so little information about 19th century black writers exists, he said, each one is treasured and considered as shedding some light on the black literary scene at the time.
Jackson's findings are supported by research carried out by Katherine Flynn, an independent scholar and certified genealogical record specialist. The discovery has prompted questions in Internet chat rooms and on web discussions about how Kelley-Hawkins came to be considered black.
Characters in "Megda," as well as another by Kelley-Hawkins, "Four Girls at Cottage City," seem to be white, and racial-identify themes do not figure in the books.
[I]Jackson said she has written a long article about her finding that she hopes to submit to a literary journal.[/I]
[I]Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.[/I][/QUOTE] ....[I]which will have no actual value other than its author being black.[/I]
Which is to say "utterly worthless".
2005-03-20 18:22 | User Profile
What I find most amusing is not the parts you highlighted in themselves, so much as they can get away with saying them, and still expect to be, and are, taken seriously by some segment of society. Black literature, Women's literature, and Black Women's literature are sort of pedestrian now, "post colonialism" is the new trendy movement among those who are inclined to inject indentity politics into teaching literature. The American Southwest is even considered "post colonial" by some, there is a book called Borderlands which is a novel that documents the chicana lesbian immigrant experience. It is sometimes read in todays classes.
2005-03-20 18:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=robinder]Black literature, Women's literature, and Black Women's literature are sort of pedestrian now, "post colonialism" is the new trendy movement among those who are inclined to inject indentity politics into teaching literature. [/QUOTE]
I think of these "genres" as a sort of special olympics for their intended groups.
The only objectionable part is that we have to all make believe they're playing in the real Olympics.
2005-03-20 19:13 | User Profile
I don't take them seriously as "genres" myself. It is not the case though that women or non-whites are incapable of worthy creations, that is my view at least, I am sure some would take issue with it, but I am prepared to defend it in that event. What I object to is when such works are made, or become categorized as having nothing more to say than to say that writer or artist, film maker or whatever else is a member of whatever particular group and is making some statement(s) about that group and its plight. This is also relevant to the views I expressed in one of the film threads, I don't see classifying films based on how well the white race is portrayed as any better than classifiying books based on the authors being black women in the 1800s. Otherwise, it is a case of putting politics before principles.
2005-03-20 19:15 | User Profile
"Special Olympics" LOL!
[QUOTE]Scholars will likely pay less attention to 19th century New England author Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins[/QUOTE] This is good to know for I wasn't paying any attention to her prior to reading this. [QUOTE]There, she found that Kelley-Hawkins' family left blank a survey field on the Massachusetts 1860 census about race, a practice that indicated the family was white.[/QUOTE] Then again, she might have been a "high yellow". :angry:
2005-03-20 19:40 | User Profile
My sisters and I were spending our Christmas gift certificates at the Barnes & Noble on the KC Plaza a few years ago. I was dawdling as usual ... looking for politics and theology but lost among the Gay/Lesbian, Black, etc. sections on the third floor ... when I realized they were all glaring at me from the first floor of the central, open atrium.
I leaned over the balustrade: "HOLD ON A SECOND, I CAN'T FIND THE HETEROSEXUAL SECTION"
Literally brought the place to a halt for a second there. Delicious.
2005-03-20 19:48 | User Profile
I don't go to large chain stores if I can avoid it, what I find most distressing about them now is that the largest individual section seems to be Japanese Comics.
2005-03-20 21:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE]It is not the case though that women or non-whites are incapable of worthy creations, that is my view at least, I am sure some would take issue with it, but I am prepared to defend it in that event. What I object to is when such works are made, or become categorized as having nothing more to say than to say that writer or artist, film maker or whatever else is a member of whatever particular group and is making some statement(s) about that group and its plight. This is also relevant to the views I expressed in one of the film threads, I don't see classifying films based on how well the white race is portrayed as any better than classifiying books based on the authors being black women in the 1800s. [/QUOTE]
She's right.
2005-03-20 21:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=robinder]I don't go to large chain stores if I can avoid it, what I find most distressing about them now is that the largest individual section seems to be Japanese Comics.[/QUOTE]
Well, like I said, it was Christmas and we were all in the city. I'm surrounded by some of the best secondhand bookstores in the country (save one in New Market, VA, maybe) and have no car to get to a chain store anyway.
If I come up empty making my rounds among the musty shelves of NOLA used books, there is always [url]www.abebooks.com[/url] ... secondhand books galore if you don't mind postage paid to procure them from Great Britain, Europe or (my most farflung to date), Australia.
2005-03-20 22:05 | User Profile
There is no real problem with the store as long as you can get what you're looking for, that is the important thing. My main objection is that any section's size is taking away potential room from something else.
2005-03-21 00:05 | User Profile
Turn the story around, but them would you be...RACIST?