haha...it seems like a good majority of us forgot to blog because we're too busy revising...i'm guilty as well since i'm posting after the deadline.

For the sake of argument...
If Equiano is truly not born from Africa, then his whole narrative is discredited which means that there is no reason to read his book.

Equiano states that the narrative is essentially his autobiography. He claims that he experienced everything written in the book. Therefore we expect the story to be his own story. But if he was not from Africa, then he could not have possibly experienced all that he claimed since he claims to have been born in Africa. This would make him a liar.

Now if he didn't really experience all that, then what did he experience? Also, is there any validity in saying that some other African slave experienced what he described? If he does not try to preserve the integrity of his story then everything should be disregarded because how can you divide actual first hand experience from second hand or perhaps even fabricated experiences?

If he said that it was a compilation of slave stories woven together into the life a of a fictional African then great, lets keep reading. But if he claims first hand experience yet puts in other accounts then he is actively deceiving the reader and there is no point in reading it for the sake of truth and history. If we want to read it with our fiction/entertainment lenses, then go for it...you can read just about anything with that perspective.

I mentioned a fraud Native American novel previously during class, that was nominated for a variety of literary awards. I have now found the Time article regarding how an actual Native American writer feels about this fake autobiography: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1154221,00.html

Perhaps I feel that this is such a personal issue since throughout my entire life, I've been bombarded with various Asian actors being used to represent any Asian role in American cinema and TV. Whether it's Zhang ZiYi and Gong Li speaking their painfully Chinese-accented Japanese and English while playing the leads of Memoirs of a Geisha, or James Kyson Lee speaking his poor Japanese in the popular TV show, Heroes, what it comes down to is simply an insult to those whom are from that background and speak the language. Not only is it heavily inaccurate, the message people are left with is that as long as Americans can't tell the difference, it doesn't matter which Asian or Asian American is used to tell the story. They're all the same.

In that aspect, I'm somewhat happy that novels are taken on a more critical level regarding authenticity. Though you can't hear the wrong accents that you do in film or TV, there's definitely an innate accent in terms of how the story is told. Without authenticity, the story is fake and insulting to those whom actually experienced it. As stated by Alexie in the Time article, the fake writer has never experienced the real suffering, the real injustices committed against the real people. Without having personally experienced such a traumatic event, one can only imagine based upon what they know. Can imagination then be treated on par with another's account of true suffering? I couldn't possibly imagine someone attempting to claim to have written an autobiography of being a Holocaust surviver and never having stepped foot out of America. Apart from how insulting that is to real survivors, the experience just can't be truthfully conveyed and it's doubtful anyone would take it seriously. Just because Equiano's text is older, I don't see why the same standards shouldn't be held.


-Kathy

This year, everyone gets "trick."

I have to confess that I don't feel fully qualified to write about The Life of Gustavus Vassa until I finish it, but if I have to write the words "Doctor Impossible" ever again, I'm going to go crazy. So here goes.

Paul Youngquist's essay on Gustavus Vassa's (interesting) narrative raises a good point, namely that most of us take for granted that we assess the truth of things—or at least their claims to genre—based on European protocols. But Youngquist pitches this as an ideological battle between Western imperialism and its casualties, in this case the (black) Atlantic laborer. As far as I know, where you're from (as in where you were born) is an even more important determinant of identity in other cultures. No matter how far you've come, or how little time you spent in your hometown, people will judge you by what they know of it. America has the greatest possible mobility, the greatest possible hybridity (bonus points for using the "h" word?) in the world in this respect. If you want to renounce your birthplace because of a spiritual connection to your ancestral homeland, that's OK. But regardless of your spiritual connection to a place, if you weren't born there then you weren't born there.

It's tempting to take Youngquist to task for the awkward juxtaposition of an art form defined by its vernacular roots and a writing style defined by its remoteness from the vernacular, but that would be missing the point. Youngquist definitely tries in this essay, but I'm still not convinced of his argument's validity. His hip hop references aren't especially surefooted and most of them feel a bit contrived. A case in point: Kool Keith, who allegedly "acknowledges identity to be an effect of practices like hip hop rather than their origin." Actually, he's just a really creative surrealistic rapper who likes themed albums. I don't deny KK his intellectual chops, but I don't think it's quite honest of Youngquist to conflate the idea of the heteronym with Vassa's biographic liberties. Kool Keith doesn't mix identities; he's either Black Elvis or Dr. Octagon (or one of his dozen or so other mic personalities), but never both. And at the end of the day he admits that he's Keith Thornton from New York. In other words, pretending to be Dr. Dooom or Black Elvis (and thereby forming an openly fictional heteronym) isn't the same thing as claiming to be from Africa. Youngquist wants to let Vassa have it both ways, which is fine as long as Vassa's narrative is no longer categorized as biography or, gasp, nonfiction, because it clearly isn't.

And let's define our terms. Hip hop isn't just mixing and remixing—it's not only an art form that recombines (to use Youngquist's favorite verb) existing elements to make new ones. Youngquist cites rappers when he should be talking about DJs—the two split years ago and have since pursued radically different paths. Rappers have taken over the mainstream because mainstream tastes need a catchy chorus (think 50 or Kanye or anyone popular) and can't deal with the challenging, not-quite-musical sounds of modern turntablism (as practiced by Cut Chemist and Prefuse 73, to name two).

Remixed music is a useful metaphor to have at hand when discussing identity production, but let's please not take it too far, or worse, strip it of its own complexities and subdivisions to make an academic argument. Hip hop—either rapping or scratching—is not primarily concerned with subverting the Western protocols of Western identity-production. Regardless of its diasporic origins, it's basically a Western genre and, as Youngquist admits, subject to Western values, particularly capitalism. Rappers want to make money so badly that most of their songs are about making money (Lumbajack, anybody?) and DJs want to make people dance. Hip hop's global reach can't and shouldn't be disassociated from the global reach of the American empire where hip hop emerged. Hip hop is an American export and it's bigger and more important than the European Romantic Review. Fact.

I hope he can at least smile at the irony of writing about "recombinant mixology" and "the counter-esthetics of hip hop" in the European Romantic Review, sure to be read by exactly 0 people engaged in said counter-esthetics. That's academia for you... (No offense intended, Talissa.)

P.S. Happy Halloween everyone!
P.P.S. KitKats are like crack.

Reading for the Cynics

I love how interconnected my classes become. Over the summer, I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and got uber excited because Philip K. Dick named his freaking mood organ after Mr. W. Penfield. (Oh, MCB 61, I miss you.) And just yesterday, I was going to interject on the subject of the (in)significance of Equiano lying about his "identity" because we talked about reliable sources in my history class. The general consensus in America is that museums are the most reliable source when it comes to history, followed by a grandparent or relative who was there. Rounding out the bottom of the totem pole are someone/anyone who was there, a high school teacher, college professor, and movies! Except for movies, Americans' opinion on who to trust is utterly incredible. While I can see why museums would be thought of as more reliable since they seem to be unbiased, many artifacts can be omitted or left out of displays; evidence can easily be hidden. As for professors and high school teachers, they rely on multiple sources and their research must at least try to be trustworthy to gain support in the academic world. As for first-person narratives, people must be very wary. When it comes to one person's memory, there's inherent fallibility on the narrator's part. So my first thought on the matter of Equiano's identity was that his origin made no difference to the story since his narration should be read with a bit of skepticism because of the innately false recollections of incidences, no matter how soon after the event is written about. Plus, his ultimate goal was to abolish slavery. Then, I thought about whether or not the text would be read differently if he said he was born in Africa versus America. In my opinion, the text would still retain most of the meat of what people in England would take away from it. Really, would anyone think Equiano any less black if he were born in South Carolina? We established that his "African" identity was born in America, not Africa. And if he had never landed in America, than he wouldn't be qualified as "African." In Africa he was not categorized as such, so in any matter, he would have had to be connected to the United States somehow. In this twisted mess, Africanism depends on American labels. Consequently, Equiano could have been born anywhere without affecting his "identity."

I'm blogging before I forget

Hi all. I am making an attempt at this blog now before I completely forget once the day begins anew. Honestly, the more I was attempting to analyze Grossman's novel for this paper (due in a day or so), the more I found a pattern similar to that in Dick's novel: there's this cyclic blur of distinction between superhero and supervillain, just as there is between android and human. It seems as though the more you think you know about them, the less you truly do, especially in the case of the supervillains (and their reasoning for being such villainous individuals). I found it a headache and a half to make that clear cut distinction anymore besides the fact that they were slapped with a label that they eventually followed through with. It's as if they were evil because they were told they were supposed to be, and therefore were committing crimes in order to fulfill the role assigned to them.

Anyways, back to the current novel at hand. When reading Equiano's account of his "home country," it definitely did feel romanticized. Everything was so perfect, so right, as if bathed in a pool of glorious ideality... the utopia of Africa. I now change my vote (kind of late I know) to the side that the authenticity of his story matters. Although there is the tradeoff between interpreting the story of the silent masses in order to actually even get the story out there, I feel like the fact he concealed the origin of his stories somewhat negates any positive impact he may have had on his audience. There's always emphasis placed on the legitimacy of a text, and to go so far as to claim it to be true without any disclaimers may even have the opposite effect that Equiano was aiming for: his dishonesty may lead any readers who would have otherwise been moved to change their views based on reading his story to see himself and everyone he is representing (the slave population) in an even more negative light: as liars who will use any means necessary, even dishonesty (which is a big no-no in the Christian/Puritan world) to achieve their ultimate goal. In the end, it may hurt the cause of the slaves.

My apologies if you actually read this probably incoherent rambling. Good luck to all on the papers!