Tag Archives: Langston Hughes

The Cosmopolitan Vernacular

Posted on February 6, 2014 by wcd2

February 6, 2014 Not an oxymoron, but a genetic condition, as Sheldon Pollock argues, a local tongue globalized in its emergence and globalized again in its circulation. Is that why so many African-American authors began with dialect poetry? Not only … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Creole, Dialect, Indian Ocean, Vernacular | Tagged Amitav Ghosh, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Edwidge Danticat, Ezra Pound, Jamaica Kincaid, Langston Hughes, Lascars, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Pisan Cantos, Sea of Poppies, Sheldon Pollock | 1 Comment

Passing On: Amiri Baraka, Suzan-Lori Parks, Claudia Rankine

Posted on January 22, 2014 by wcd2

January 22, 2014 James Baldwin probably felt a tinge of jealousy at the sight of Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison at his funeral. Thousands of people there, and those three in particular, so eloquent in their tribute, but … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, collaboration, contemporary poetry, jazz, Music, Theater | Tagged Amiri Baraka, Claudia Rankine, Danny Glover, Diane Paulus, Diedre Murray, Dodge Poetry Fest, James Baldwin, Jesse Jackson, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Martin Espada, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Stephen Sondheim, Suzan-Lori Parks, Toni Medina, Toni Morrison, Tony Hoagland | Leave a comment

New James Baldwin letters

Posted on January 1, 2014 by wcd2

January 1, 2014 The 100 letters recently acquired by the Beinecke Library are not to famous people, just Baldwin’s friends. The letters to Painter began in 1954, when his play “The Amen Corner” opened at Howard, and came up to 1964, … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Europe, Friendship, Libraries, Turkey, Twentieth century literature | Tagged Another Country, Beinecke Library, David Leeming, Ernest Hemingway, Eugene Lerner, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Invisible Man, Istanbul, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Martha Gellhorn, Martin Luther King, Mary Painter, Medgar Evers, No Name in the Street, Ralph Ellison, Rosa Parks, The Fire Next Time, The Panther and the Lash | Leave a comment

Faulkner’s Harlem Renaissance

Posted on November 20, 2013 by wcd2

November 20, 2013 This past week I was teaching Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing. I’d never assigned them before, but they couldn’t have been better — for my “Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner” class. How else to contextualize Light in August? Not … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, African-American music, jazz | Tagged Aaron Douglas, Aime Césaire, August Wilson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby, Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Light in August, Matisse, Picasso, Romare Bearden, Tender is the Night, The Black Atlantic, University of Mississippi, William Faulkner | 1 Comment

Ralph Ellison, Gordon Parks: Photographers

Posted on September 18, 2013 by wcd2

Sept 18, 2014 The photos, under the title “A Man Becomes Invisible,” were in Life Magazine, 25 August 1952, close on the heels of novel’s publication earlier that year, on April 14. It was a coup. Parks had been a … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, collaboration, Photography, Race | Tagged " Life Magazine, "From Harlem is Nowhere", Farm Security Administration, Gordon Parks, Harlem, Invisible Man, James Baldwin, LaFargue Psychiatry Clinic, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberrry, Magazine of the Year, Ralph Ellison, Richard Avedon, Richard Wright, Roy DeCarava | Leave a comment

March on Washington: unsung

Posted on August 28, 2013 by wcd2

August 28, 2013 No, not literally unsung. In fact, the most memorable moments at the microphone, other than Martin Luther King’s “I had a Dream” speech, featured singers: Mahalia Jackson; Marian Anderson; Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez and … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, African-American music, Journalism, Media, Music, Twentieth century literature | Tagged Bob Dylan, Ghana, James Baldwin, Joan Baez, Langston Hughes, Mahalia Jackson, Malcolm X, March on Washington, Marian Anderson, Martin Luther King, Norman Mailer, Odetta, Paul and Mary, Peter, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, The Armies of the Night, W. E. B. Du Bois | 2 Comments

Children’s literature as World Literature

Posted on July 10, 2013 by wcd2

July 10, 2013 Is there a special connection between children’s literature and world literature? I’ve always wondered about this. Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, and Toni Morrison are just individual examples, and maybe they’re all flukes. Still, there they are: … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, ancient Greece, Children's literature, Educational institutions, world literature | Tagged Aesop's Fables, Bonnie Tulloch, First Book of Africa, Gertrude Stein, Herman Melville, Institute for World Literature, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Little Man, Old Greek Stories, Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children, Slade Morrison, the Sampo, The World is Round, Toni Morrison | Leave a comment

Langston Hughes’s Children Literature

Posted on May 31, 2013 by wcd2

May 31, 2013 My class, “Regional, National, Global,” has no special focus on children’s literature, but it does seem to come up a lot. I think it’s because of Langston Hughes — the uncertain borders of his poetry, holding a … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, African-American music, Children's literature, Cities, collaboration, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Experimental poetry, jazz, Modernist poetry, Music, print medium, Twentieth century literature, World history | Tagged Arkansas, Bob Ericson, First Book of Africa, Franklin Watts, Langston Hughes, Sarah Robbins, University of Chicago Lab School | Leave a comment

Pynchon on the Simpsons, Hughes on the Bootsie cartoons

Posted on August 29, 2012 by wcd2

August 29, 2012 I’m not absolutely sure it is his voice, but most people seem to think it is: “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife,” Season 15 of The Simpsons, aired on Jan 25, 2004. Marge is mad enough to write a … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, collaboration, Contemporary Art, Ethnicity, Graphic Novels, Interdisciplinarity, Media, Modern art, Modernist poetry, print medium, Race, Remediation, Television, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts, YouTube videos | Tagged " Graphics Classics, "Danse Africaine", "Simple" stories, "The Negro, Afua Richards, All's Fair in Oven War, Bootsie cartoons, Chicago Defender, Daumier, Diatribe of a Mad Housewife, Hogarth, Langston Hughes, Moby-Dick, Ollie Harrington, Stan Shaw, The Simpsons, Thomas Pynchon | 2 Comments

Street Scene: Langston Hughes, Kurt Weill, Elmer Rice

Posted on July 11, 2012 by wcd2

July 11, 2012 It started out as a play by Elmer Rice: a Broadway run of 601 shows, the Pulitzer Prize in 1929, the movie in 1931. Kurt Weill saw it in Berlin, both the play and the film, and … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, African-American literature, Arts communities, Broadway plays, Cities, collaboration, Dance, Ethnicity, film medium, Interdisciplinarity, jazz, lyric, Media, Modernist poetry, Music, Remediation, Theater, Twentieth century literature, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged " Anna Sokolow, " Life Magazine, "Lonely House, "Moon-faced, Abbey Lincoln, Berlin, blues, Broadway, Elmer Rice, Harlem, jazz, Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes, Musical Digest, Pultizer Prize, Starry-Eyed, Street Scene | 9 Comments