paul gilroy

PAUL GILROY’s

The Black

Atlantic:

Modernity and

Double

ConsciousnessQuinn T. Chipley

HUM 672-02 Spring, 2014

Paul Gilroy

PAUL GILROY

CURRICULUM VITAEBorn: London, 16.2.56. Nationality: British.

Addresses: Sociology Department, London School of Economics, Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE Current occupation: Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory, Sociology Department, London School of Economics and Political Science.

EDUCATION1978-1981 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), Birmingham University. My Ph.D. thesis: 'Racism, Class and The Contemporary Cultural Politics of 'Race' and Nation' was examined in Summer 1986. 1975-1978 Sussex University B.A. (Hons) 2.1 in American Studies. This degree involved final dissertations on the Sociology of Afro-American music and modes of masculinity in the radical novelists of the 30s.

1966-1973 University College School London

(Source:

http://www.uu.nl/SiteCollectionDocuments/GW/GW_Centre_Humanities/Vrede%20van%20Utrecht%20Leerstoel/CV%20Paul%20Gilroy.pdf )

And how Gilroy presents

himself in a less formal position:https://twitter.com/bungatuffie

Paul Gilroy

@bungatuffie

A metaphysician in the dark, twanging.

Soul rebel, dilettante, tele-ologist,

Londoner, utopian, dreamer-tribe

affiliate.

The well of Zohassadar [A1201]

Awards

1994 American

Book Award

Before

Columbus

Foundation

The Chapter One Title Says It:

He positions Himself and his Thesis as

Counterculture and not Subculture

Why? ―Any shift towards a postmodern condition should

not, however, mean that the conspicuous power of

these modern [i.e. – 18th and 19th Century revolutionary

transformations that included plantation slavery]

subjectivities and the movements they articulated has

been left behind. Their power has, if anything, grown,

and their ubiquity as a means to make political sense of

the world is currently unparalleled by the languages of

class and socialism by which they once appeared to

have been surpassed.‖ p. 2

Which, by Chipley’s interpretation, means that Gilroy had

given up on classical Marxist materialism as articulated in

the 19th and 20th century ―class/ nation‖ forms.

Why in 1993 Give Up on a Classical

Materialistic Dialectic to Refute Capitalism?

Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, 1979-1990, Conservative Party

Prime Minister, John Major, 1990-1997, Conservative Party

Falkland Island/ Malvinas War 1983: Britain wins and retains her colony.

Operation Desert Storm, 1990-199. the U.S. wins and reinstates Kuwait as its trading partner.

The USSR formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991.

China was in full-throttle capitalist market reform by 1993

Continental Radical Left (i.e.- French) attempts to defend Stalin and Mao had utterly failed by this time.

Other Contexts of this Text:

Toni Morrison’s Beloved wins the Pulitzer

Prize in 1988 after a campaign of letter

writing following the book’s failure to win

the National Book Award in 1987

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. defends 2 Live Crew

in the obscenity trail of 1990

Sailing Ships as the Metaphor Crossing the Atlantic (and remember that

Gilroy had done so often. His undergraduate

training is as an Americanist. He visited New

Haven, CT, a black town, as he calls it; where

he was dismayed to see that the Black

American music he was seeking was dead.)

This metaphor embraces the Middle Passage

This metaphor embraces the leading African

American mentors Delaney and Dubois

This metaphor embraces Black British music

Three Artifacts Essential to Chapter 1: The

Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of

Modernity

J.M.W. Turner’s Oil Painting, "Slavers

Throwing overboard the Dead and

Dying—Typhoon coming on“ or “The

Slave Ship” (pp. 13-15, 16)

North London bands; e.g. Soul II Soul and

Funki Dreds (pp. 15-16)

Martin Robison Delaney, Blake; or, The

Huts of America (pp. 19-40)

Turner’s painting: Slave Ship

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoCW80MEGXY

Soul II Soul: ―Keep On Moving‖

(Funki Dreds Mix)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peY5niPjZvg

Martin Delaney Robison: Blake

The text is available here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080708224553/http://et

ext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DelBlak.html

Chapter 6: ―Living Memory

and the Slave Sublime‖

Opposes Africentric Views(Chipley’s summary: Place will not be a place.)

Opposes Linear time model for Modernity (Chipley’s summary: Time will not be a point on a line)

Advances a hope of merged Musical/ sexual healing for both political and private pain (Gilroy turns to Percy Mayfield lyrics)

Returns to the Jewish Diaspora experience as instructive, but not determinative, for Black Diaspora experiences

Which ends up in a rather

strong Polemic of

VS.

Stanley Crouch Toni Morrison

FRACTALS: Gilroy’s Model ―The recursive nature of some patterns is obvious in

certain examples—a branch from a tree or a frond from

a fern is a miniature replica of the whole: not identical,

but similar in nature. Similarly, random fractals have been

used to describe/create many highly irregular real-world

objects. A limitation of modeling fractals is that

resemblance of a fractal model to a natural

phenomenon does not prove that the phenomenon

being modeled is formed by a process similar to the modeling algorithm.‖ (emphasis added)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal#Natural_phenomena_

with_fractal_features

(Mandelbrodt created the term fractals in 1975. The fractal model

became a strong vogue in science and art soon after.)

FRACTALS: SOME FORMATIONS ARE

(AND REMAIN) BIGGER THAN OTHERS

BUT!!!!!The “miracle” of fractals is that any view within any “microcosm” of the fractal will look like the view of the “macrocosm.” Any point in position is at the same relative distance from every other point in the surrounding environment.

If you are interested, look at this video on a basic fractal called the Koch Snowflake:https://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry/basic-geometry/koch_snowflake/v/koch-snowflake-fractal

Another Gilroy model: Rhizomorphic: Shaped

liked rhizomes (cognate to the word “root”)

The relationship of rhizomorphic and fractal modeling is obvious.

Fractal art

example

(source:

http://krzysztofmarcza

k.deviantart.com/art/

z7-b-3D-fractal-2-

138950342 )

BOOK REVIEWS OF GILROY’S The Black

Atlantic: Modernity and Double

Consciousness

http://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearc

h?Query=The+Black+Atlantic%3A+Moder

nity+and+Double+Consciousness&acc=o

n&wc=on&fc=off

(This link gets you to a JSTOR general listing

of several book reviews, the direct URL links

for five of which follow in this PowerPoint.)

Pure summary and description. No

real critique.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2076536?Search=

yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl

ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search

Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness

&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT

he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2

BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a

mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff

Critical of the way Gilroy

slights Baldwin and Morrison

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3042577?Search=

yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl

ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search

Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness

&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT

he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2

BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a

mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff

Notes deficits in Gilroy’s lack of treatment of women;

Gilroy’s apparent inability to transcend the hyper-

masculinities ensconced in the rap he defends

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4286351?Search=

yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl

ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search

Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness

&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT

he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2

BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a

mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff

Critiques absence of Africa; critiques Gilroy’s insufficient follow-thorough on the

use of the fractal model (especially in relationship to DuBois); “’ten miles wide

and an inch deep” quote from the harsh critics, though this review is less harsh.

Picks up well on the centrality of the comparison of the Jewish diaspora and the

Black diaspora Notes that the book is obviously unfinished, but still is important for

offering a method.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/30041559?Search

=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=

Black&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&searc

hText=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousnes

s&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT

he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2

BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a

mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff

Homes in on the inversion that Gilroy hopes to achieve: double consciousness is not a burden but is a privileged stance from which to watch and participate in the fluid reconstructions of culture and power; and the corollary that the Marx-Engels paradigm of nation-state, means of production, and proletariat are not linear but are problematic in the zig-zaging developments

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4289480?Search=

yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Bl

ack&searchText=Atlantic:&searchText=Modernity&search

Text=and&searchText=Double&searchText=Consciousness

&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DT

he%2BBlack%2BAtlantic%253A%2BModernity%2Band%2

BDouble%2BConsciousness%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26a

mp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff

THE END