Presented By: Department of English Language and Literature
Workshop with Mahmoud Zidan
“And Then, We Heard the Thunder”: Audision in James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk
Please join Critical Contemporary Studies to discuss a paper on James Baldwin by visiting scholar Mahmoud Zidan
This paper discusses different models of resistance that James Baldwin proffers in his 1974 novel, If Beale Street Could Talk. In response to the power of the white gaze against which African Americans have always struggled, Baldwin launches in this novel a three-part framework of resistance. First, the narrative exposes the deleterious effects of that gaze on African Americans through underscoring the state’s visible violence. Second, it opens up spaces for the counter-gaze as a means of resistance to the state’s racist gaze, even as it shows the limitations of the exclusive use of counter-gazing as a resistance strategy. Third, Baldwin’s narrative also employs sound-based resistance to more effectively counteract the damage that the white gaze causes in the lives of his black characters. In this context, I argue that Baldwin’s tripartite framework of resistance is effective, as it does not privilege sight over sound and in so doing does not adopt the same gaze-based framework of the oppressor. On the contrary, what If Beale demonstrates, I show, is how to reshape the contours of resistance, engaging—wittingly or unwittingly—philosophical approaches that concern themselves with auditory and visual ways of knowing and resisting power, which I call audision. While lending itself to the theoretical and thematic aspects of the novel, this tripartite framework extends as well to the novel’s structure. Baldwin produces an art form that urges readers not only to read but also to listen, a new novelistic form that opens up possibilities for multisensory resistance without (fore)closing them.
Please email Hayley O'Malley (hayleyom@umich.edu) or Joshua Miller (joshualm@umich.edu) if you are interested in receiving the paper, which will be available on Monday, April 8th.
Mahmoud Zidan is an assistant professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Jordan. His interests include African American literature during the Cold War, postcolonial studies, Palestinian literature, native-speakerism, and contemporary fiction.
This paper discusses different models of resistance that James Baldwin proffers in his 1974 novel, If Beale Street Could Talk. In response to the power of the white gaze against which African Americans have always struggled, Baldwin launches in this novel a three-part framework of resistance. First, the narrative exposes the deleterious effects of that gaze on African Americans through underscoring the state’s visible violence. Second, it opens up spaces for the counter-gaze as a means of resistance to the state’s racist gaze, even as it shows the limitations of the exclusive use of counter-gazing as a resistance strategy. Third, Baldwin’s narrative also employs sound-based resistance to more effectively counteract the damage that the white gaze causes in the lives of his black characters. In this context, I argue that Baldwin’s tripartite framework of resistance is effective, as it does not privilege sight over sound and in so doing does not adopt the same gaze-based framework of the oppressor. On the contrary, what If Beale demonstrates, I show, is how to reshape the contours of resistance, engaging—wittingly or unwittingly—philosophical approaches that concern themselves with auditory and visual ways of knowing and resisting power, which I call audision. While lending itself to the theoretical and thematic aspects of the novel, this tripartite framework extends as well to the novel’s structure. Baldwin produces an art form that urges readers not only to read but also to listen, a new novelistic form that opens up possibilities for multisensory resistance without (fore)closing them.
Please email Hayley O'Malley (hayleyom@umich.edu) or Joshua Miller (joshualm@umich.edu) if you are interested in receiving the paper, which will be available on Monday, April 8th.
Mahmoud Zidan is an assistant professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Jordan. His interests include African American literature during the Cold War, postcolonial studies, Palestinian literature, native-speakerism, and contemporary fiction.
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