This Companion offers fresh insight into the art and politics of James Baldwin, one of the most important writers and provocative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Black, gay, and gifted, he was hailed as a 'spokesman for the race', although he personally, and controversially, eschewed titles and classifications of all kinds. Individual essays examine his classic novels and nonfiction as well as his work across lesser-examined domains: poetry, music, theatre, sermon, photo-text, children's literature, public media, comedy, and artistic collaboration. In doing so, The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin captures the power and influence of his work during the civil rights era as well as his relevance in the 'post-race' transnational twenty-first century, when his prescient questioning of the boundaries of race, sex, love, leadership, and country assume new urgency.

The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin captures the power and influence of Baldwin's work during the civil rights era as well as his relevance in the 'post-race' transnational twenty-first century, when his prescient questioning of the boundaries of race, sex, love, leadership, and country assume new urgency.

"This fine collection of essays represents an important contribution to the rediscovery of Baldwin's stature as essayist, novelist, black prophetic political voice, and witness to the Civil Rights era. The title provides an excellent thematic focus. He understood both the necessity, and the impossibility, of being a black 'American' writer. He took these issues 'Beyond'---Paris, Istanbul, various parts of Africa---but this formative experience only returned him to the unresolved dilemmas. He was a fine novelist and a major prophetic political voice. He produced some of the most important essays of the twentieth century and addressed in depth the complexities of the black political movement. His relative invisibility almost lost us one of the most significant voices of his generation. This welcome 'revival' retrieves it. Close call." ---Stuart Hall, Professor Emeritus, Open University This interdisciplinary collection by leading writers in their fields brings together a discussion of the many facets of James Baldwin, both as a writer and as the prophetic conscience of a nation. The core of the volume addresses the shifting, complex relations between Baldwin as an American—“as American as any Texas GI” as he once wryly put it—and his life as an itinerant cosmopolitan. His ambivalent imaginings of America were always mediated by his conception of a world “beyond” America: a world he knew both from his travels and from his voracious reading. He was a man whose instincts were, at every turn, nurtured by America; but who at the same time developed a ferocious critique of American exceptionalism. In seeking to understand how, as an American, he could learn to live with difference—breaking the power of fundamentalisms of all stripes—he opened an urgent, timely debate that is still ours. His America was an idea fired by desire and grief in equal measure. As the authors assembled here argue, to read him now allows us to imagine new possibilities for the future. With contributions by Kevin Birmingham, Douglas Field, Kevin Gaines, Briallen Hopper, Quentin Miller, Vaughn Rasberry, Robert Reid-Pharr, George Shulman, Hortense Spillers, Colm Tóibín, Eleanor W. Traylor, Cheryl A. Wall, and Magdalena Zaborowska.

The biography of one of the world's most earth-shattering African-American writers

View the Table of Contents Read the Introduction.This excellent volume conceives of Baldwin as a figure crucial to discussions of whiteness, sexuality, and globalization. The times are ripe for the valuable reconsideration of Baldwin that James Baldwin Now provides.--Jennifer DeVere Brody,George Washington UniversityOne of the most prolific and influential African American writers, James Baldwin was for many a harbinger of hope, a man who traversed the genres of art-writing novels, essays, and poetry.James Baldwin Now takes advantage of the latest interdisciplinary work to understand the complexity of Baldwin's vision and contributions without needing to name him as exclusively gay, expatriate, black, or activist. It was, in fact, Baldwin who said, it is quite impossible to write a worthwhile novel about a Jew or a Gentile or a Homosexual, for people refuse... to function in so neat and one-dimensional a fashion. McBride has gathered a unique group of new scholars to interrogate Baldwin's life, his presence, and his political thought and work. James Baldwin Now finally addresses the man who spoke, and continues to speak, so eloquently to crucial issues of the twentieth century.Table of ContentsIntroduction: How Much Time Do You Want for Your Progress? New Approaches to James Baldwin Dwight A. McBridePart I: Baldwin and Race1 White Fantasies of Desire: Baldwin and the Racial Identities of SexualityMarlon B. Ross2 Now More Than Ever: James Baldwin and the Critique of White LiberalismRebecca Aanerud 3 Finding the Words: Baldwin, Race Consciousness, and Democratic TheoryLawrie BalfourPart II: Baldwin and Sexuality4 Culture, Rhetoric, and Queer Identity: James Baldwin and the Identity Politics of Race and Sexuality William J. Spurlin5 Of Mimicry and (Little Man Little) Man: Toward a Queersighted Theory of Black Childhood Nicholas Boggs6 Sexual Exiles: James Baldwin and Another Country James A. DievlerPart III: Baldwin and the Transatlantic7 Baldwin's Cosmopolitan Loneliness James Darsey8 Alas, Poor Richard!: Transatlantic Baldwin, the Politics of Forgetting, and the Project of Modernity Michelle M. Wright9 The Parvenu Baldwin and the Other Side of Redemption: Modernity, Race, Sexuality, and the Cold War Roderick A. FergusonPart IV: Baldwin and Intertextuality10 (Pro)Creating Imaginative Spaces and Other Queer Acts: Randall Kenan's A Visitation of Spirits and Its Revival of James Baldwin's Absent Black Gay Man in Giovanni's Room Sharon Patricia Holland11 I'm Not Entirely What I Look Like: Richard Wright,James Baldwin, and the Hegemony of Vision; or, Jimmy's FBEye BluesMaurice Wallace12 Life According to the Beat: James Baldwin, Bessie Smith, and the Perilous Sounds of LoveJosh KunPart V: Baldwin and the Literary13 The Discovery of What It Means to Be a Witness: James Baldwin's Dialectics of Difference Joshua L. Miller14 Selfhood and Strategy in Notes of a Native Son Lauren Rusk15 Select Bibliography of Works by and on James Baldwin Jeffrey W. HoleContributors Index

William James (1842–1910) was both a philosopher and a psychologist, nowadays most closely associated with the pragmatic theory of truth. The essays in this Companion deal with the full range of his thought as well as other issues, including technical philosophical issues, religious speculation, moral philosophy and political controversies of his time. The relationship between James and other philosophers of his time, as well as his brother Henry, are also examined. By placing James in his intellectual landscape the volume will be particularly useful to teachers and students outside philosophy in such areas as religious studies, history of ideas, and American studies. New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to James currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of James.

In seminal works such as Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, and The Fire Next Time, acclaimed author and social critic James Baldwin (1924--1987) expresses his profound belief that writers have the power to transform society, to engage the public, and to inspire and channel conversation to achieve lasting change. While Baldwin is best known for his writings on racial consciousness and injustice, he is also one of the country's most eloquent theorists of democratic life and the national psyche. In A Political Companion to James Baldwin, a group of prominent scholars assess the prolific author's relevance to present-day political challenges. Together, they address Baldwin as a democratic theorist, activist, and citizen, examining his writings on the civil rights movement, religion, homosexuality, and women's rights. They investigate the ways in which his work speaks to and galvanizes a collective American polity, and explore his views on the political implications of individual experience in relation to race and gender. This volume not only considers Baldwin's works within their own historical context, but also applies the author's insights to recent events such as the Obama presidency and the Black Lives Matter movement, emphasizing his faith in the connections between the past and present. These incisive essays will encourage a new reading of Baldwin that celebrates his significant contributions to political and democratic theory.