Rewriting

Polytropic Identities

in the Postmodern African American Novel

Chapter I

Cultural and Theoretical Contexts:

Rewriting, Revision, and Black Postmodernism

Changing the Academic Focus: “Radical Postmodernism”

Within the densely textured theoretical canvas of African American criticism, bell hooks’ essay “Postmodern Blackness” depicts, in the darkest of colors, the unilateral direction usually taken by the postmodern discourse. The literary critic strongly condemns the cultural perspectives proliferated by an academic white elite that shares a coded jargon directed primarily to a specialized audience. Taking into account the contemporary stress upon heterogeneity and tolerance for the Other, these postmodern discourses fail “to recognize a critical black presence in the culture.” In response to this white-faced thinking, hooks proposes the term “radical postmodernism” as the “politics of difference” that “should incorporate the voices of displaced, marginalized, exploited, and oppressed black people” (1998, 625-26). By challenging white supremacist thinking, “radical postmodernism” must offer insights into the African American experience through a sustained study of works by writers of color.

This focus on “otherness and difference” proposed by hooks has the role of changing the very nature of postmodern theory, since it aims at discussing literary texts by rethinking the conventionality of white academic discourse. One major mistake, as hooks observes, is to direct the critical discourse only toward a specialized audience, “one that shares a common language rooted in the very master narratives it claims to challenge” (1998, 626). The critic thus proposes a thorough revision of the postmodern discourse not only at the stylistic level, but also at the thematic one:

If radical postmodernist thinking is to have a transformative impact then a critical break with the notion of ‘authority’ as ‘mastery over’ must not simply be a rhetorical device, it must be reflected in habits of being, including styles of writing as well as chosen subject matter (1998, 626).

Crucially, hooks gives voice to contemporary black writers’ attempt to turn the critical focus toward the cultural territories belonging to the non-white Other, in order to discuss literary works by African American, Native American, Asian, and Hispanic authors, or by any author situated outside the mainstream. ¹