INTRODUCTION: WALKER, BROOKS,
AND THE ENDS OF HUMANISM
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
Many
notable changes are occurring in contemporary literary and cultural studies,
and the emergence of Digital Humanities
(DH) is gradually altering our thinking about why we study and teach literature
and what our projects, choices of methods and methodologies, and critical
debates contribute to the growth of knowledge. In contemporary discussions of DH
as interdisciplinary research and
scholarly inquiry that exploits digital technologies and procedures, it seems
that insufficient attention is given to humanism as a primal force in the history
and production of African American literature.
This special issue of the Journal
of Ethnic American Literature on
the achievements of Margaret Walker
(1915-1998 ) and Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000
) as poets and intellectuals seeks to revitalize humanism as a central
topic by way of illuminating examples rather than polemics. Walker and Brooks came to national attention,
as R. Baxter Miller has suggested between worlds, 1940-1960. Walker's For
My People won the Yale Prize for Younger Poets in 1942; Brooks' Annie
Allen was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950. As women writers
who occupy special locations in male-dominated American and African American literary
histories, they complement one another in terms of their regard for the mission
of poetry, their technical skills in creating works of art, and their differing
perspectives on the function of literature as cultural critique. Walker and Brooks were exemplary humanists. Given the probability that future studies of
their works will occur in the arena of DH and through focused explorations of
their archives, it is crucial that we remember and question how their works are informed by humanism and
its historical imperatives.[1] Prior knowledge about the dynamics of humanism, aesthetics, ideology, and ethics in
African American literature is crucial for generating significant, culturally
grounded questions .
It is intellectually profitable to
consider that essays in JEAL 7 are,
or might be, preparations for the DH
work discussed in JEAL 4 (2014), a
special issue on black poetry and technology.
To the extent that contributors to that issue "provided histories
of future work in the fields of American and African American literary
studies" (7), the contributors to JEAL
7 provide literary and cultural surveys of the territory emerging
technologies may enable us to map with greater accuracy in efforts to make use
of the ends of humanism. Indeed, our
contributors have provided materials for exploring the meaning and significance
of literary studies. Robert Luckett, for example, engages selected problems
pertaining to Margaret Walker's reputation and critical visibility by using
evidence from her journals and manuscripts, by mining the archive. RaShell Smith-Spears brings to the foreground
the centrality of class and labor in Walker's poetry and prose in arguing that
we study Walker "because her poetry and novels" (1) articulate
gendered struggles, (2) raise "the consciousness of the audience and provide an alternate vision," and
(3) "offer internal criticism and analysis." Turning to Walker's interest in astrology,
Seretha Williams joins Luckett and Smith-Spears in using the archive to show
how an alternate vision locates Walker's work in "a broader tradition of
scientific inquiry and engagement with natural phenomena."
In his essay on the topic of
influence, Jean-Philippe Marcoux establishes a symbolic bridge between Margaret
Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks and makes a strong case for how their work
"traces the pathway to self-discovery, self-realization, and
blackness," which logically creates a space that Carolyn Rodgers and Sonia
Sanchez further explore in drawing our attention to "a culturally
re-inscriptive future." Marcoux's discussion
of influence as confluence is taken into new literary historical territory as
Thom Addington uses Brooks's work to challenge the Euro-American hegemonic
model of periodization and to advocate our "moving literary scholarship
toward a greater recognition of crossroads confluence." Michelle Pinkard 's sustained reading of
Brooks's In the Mecca invites us to
once more dwell on the nexus of gender and literature. If we think of these essays as required reading
in a mini-seminar on women writers, poetry, and humanism, we can take William
Ferris's photo-essay on Margaret Walker to be a gesture of closure, "a
homage to a truly great writer, poet and teacher who significantly enriched our
understanding of the black experience."
Verbal and visual closure of this kind is not a conclusion but a new
beginning for remembering that Gwendolyn
Brooks was also "a truly great writer, poet, and teacher" and that
both of them are seminal figures in accounting for the diversity of African
American literary experiences, a diversity that many scholars in the late
twentieth century overlooked in reductive discourses about a singular black
experience. Thus, from many angles the
contributors to JEAL 7 invite us to ponder how the work of Margaret Walker and
Gwendolyn Brooks might enable us to have
visions of a liberated scholarly future in the realm of digital humanities.
[1]
For essential background information on the place of humanism in the works of
Walker and Brooks, one should read two collections edited by R. Baxter Miller, Black American Literature and Humanism
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1981) and Black American Poets Between Worlds, 1940-1960 (Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 1986) as well as Walker's
"The Humanistic Tradition of Afro-American Literature." American Libraries 1 (1970): 849-854.
and Minrose C. Gwin's seminal essay "The 'Intricate Design' of Margaret
Walker's 'Humanism': Revolution, Vision, History" in Fields Watered with Blood: Critical Essays on Margaret Walker. Ed.
Maryemma Graham. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001: 66- 77.
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