‘The Race for Theory’ by Barbara Christian, . [essay] . [N8]
22.04
This one is really good. Quotes following.[Spoiler (click to open)]
As I lived among folk for whom language was an absolutely necessary way of validating our existence, I was told that the minds of the world lived only in the small continent of Europe. The metaphysical language of the New Philosophy, then, I must admit, is repulsive to me and is one reason why I raced from philosphy to literature, since the latter seemed to me to have the possibilities of rendering the world as large and as complicated as I ex-perienced it, as sensual as I knew it was. In literature I sensed the possi-bility of the integration of feeling/knowledge, rather than the split be-tween the abstract and the emotional in which Western philosophy inevitably indulged.
Because I am a curious person, however, I postponed readings of black women writers I was working on and read some of the prophets of this new literary orientation. These writers did announce their dis-satisfaction with some of the cornerstone ideas of their own tradition, a dissatisfaction with which I was born. But in their attempt to change the orientation of Western scholarship, they, as usual, concentrated on themselves and were not in the slightest interested in the worlds they had ignored or controlled. Again I was supposed to know them, while they were not at all interested in knowing me. Instead they sought to "deconstruct" the tradition to which they belonged even as they used the same forms, style, language of that tradition, forms which necessarily embody its values.
There is at least one other lesson I learned from the Black Arts Movement. One reason for its monolithic approach had to do with its desire to destroy the power which controlled black people, but it was a power which many of its ideologues wished to achieve. The nature of our context today is such that an approach which desires power sin-glemindedly must of necessity become like that which it wishes to de-
The Race for Theory 61 stroy. Rather than wanting to change the whole model, many of us want to be at the center. It is this point of view that writers like June Jordan and Audre Lorde continually critique even as they call for empowerment, as they emphasize the fear of difference among us and our need for leaders rather than a reliance on ourselves.
I can only speak for myself. But what I write and how I write is done in order to save my own life. And I mean that literally. For me litera-ture is a way of knowing that I am not hallucinating, that whatever I feel/know is. It is an affirmation that sensuality is intelligence, that sen-sual language is language that makes sense.
For my language is very much based on what I read and how it affects me, that is, on the surprise that comes from reading something that compels you to read differently, as I believe literature does. I, therefore, have no set method, another prerequisite of the new theory, since for me every work suggests a new approach. As risky as that might seem, it is, I believe, what intelligence means - a tuned sensitivity to that which is alive and therefore cannot be known until it is known. Audre Lorde puts it in a far more succinct and sensual way in her essay "Poetry is not a Luxury": As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honeste xplorationo f them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas. They become a safe-housef or that differences o necessaryt o changea nd the con-ceptualizationo f any meaningfula ction.R ightn ow, I could name at leastt en ideasI wouldh avef ound intolerableo r incomprehensi-ble and frightening, excepta s they came afterd reamsa nd poems. This is not idle fantasy, but a disciplined attention to the true meaning of "it feels right to me." We can train ourselves to respect our feelings and to transpose them into a language so they can be shared. And where that language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for afu-ture of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been be-fore. 1 1. Audre Lord, SisterO utsider(T rumansburg, N.Y.: The Crossing Press, 1984), 37. Lloyd
[quotes], [quotes] books/non-fiction, #non-fiction, #essay, 2012: essay in english, 2012, book-2012 [essay], book-2012, @read in english, *author: female +academic, +bookish