The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness

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Summary: a textual odyssey of rethinking black political culture.
Review: In "The Black Atlantic" Paul Gilroy constructs an excellent text based on the black diasporic experience. His views of black culture as being a dynamic networked construct based on the idea of the diaspora derived from Jewish culture, is an illuminating concept that contains great substance. Gilroy's underlying transnational humanism (that can be read in his latest pseudo-utopian work "Against Race") and vital rethinking about the perils of cultural nationalism and the urgent benefits of a unique hybrid culture is a thoroughly needed breath in the stasis of linear monocultural thinking. The book functions in an excellent manner in addressing the complex dynamics of slavery, colonization, and their inherent residual effects on black political culture. In addition the method in which Gilroy weaves Adorno, Hendrix, hip-hop culture, Du Bois, Wright, Hegel and a host of others in a clear and eloquent manner is cause for reading in itself. In a nutshell, this is a valuable sociological and philosophical work that creates a rupture in linear, absolutist views of history, sexuality, identity and other various elements in relation to black particularity. In this book Gilroy composes the dynamics of intercultural exchange (whether artistic, political, social, moral etc.) as well as attributing to socialized historical memory through its brilliant text.

Rating:
Summary: a textual odyssey of rethinking black political culture.
Review: In "The Black Atlantic" Paul Gilroy constructs an excellent text based on the black diasporic experience. His views of black culture as being a dynamic networked construct based on the idea of the diaspora derived from Jewish culture, is an illuminating concept that contains great substance. Gilroy's underlying transnational humanism (that can be read in his latest pseudo-utopian work "Against Race") and vital rethinking about the perils of cultural nationalism and the urgent benefits of a unique hybrid culture is a thoroughly needed breath in the stasis of linear monocultural thinking. The book functions in an excellent manner in addressing the complex dynamics of slavery, colonization, and their inherent residual effects on black political culture. In addition the method in which Gilroy weaves Adorno, Hendrix, hip-hop culture, Du Bois, Wright, Hegel and a host of others in a clear and eloquent manner is cause for reading in itself. In a nutshell, this is a valuable sociological and philosophical work that creates a rupture in linear, absolutist views of history, sexuality, identity and other various elements in relation to black particularity. In this book Gilroy composes the dynamics of intercultural exchange (whether artistic, political, social, moral etc.) as well as attributing to socialized historical memory through its brilliant text.

Rating:
Summary: An insightful look at black transglobal culture
Review: Paul Gilroy brings a fresh eye and mind to the challenging task of examining black cultural and political manifestations as they affect the transglobal community. Gilroy, unlike some cultural theorists, sees the interconnectedness between those discourses around race, class, gender, and sexuality and its impact on the black and world communities. It is his articulation of how these entities are intertwined that makes for a fresh and insightful examination of contemporary black diasporic experience.

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Summary: Disavowal of Double Consciousness
Review: The Black Atlantic is an attempt to call to attention the contribution of the slaves to the progression of modernity. Submitting himself to the operation of Western modernity, Gilroy recognizes that there exists a double consciousness in the black flesh, that is, the black sees his own image through the 'other.' However, as to me, we should find the third term--denegation to revolute against the metaphysic difference and cultural strength instead. Denegation in its very essence is not to break down the established but rather to hold a critical eye on the contigent cultural transformation and has the self recognize the alterity.