Gender and the Americanist James
This review essay asserts that Aaron Kamugisha’s 2019 Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition, for all its brilliance, does not do justice to the thought of C. L. R. James, especially in relation to gender. After claiming that Kamugisha mostly misses the e...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9384374 http://read.dukeupress.edu/small-axe/article-pdf/25/2%20(65)/171/1265377/0250171.pdf |
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crdukeunivpr:10.1215/07990537-9384374 2024-06-02T08:11:27+00:00 Gender and the Americanist James Neptune, H. Reuben 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9384374 http://read.dukeupress.edu/small-axe/article-pdf/25/2%20(65)/171/1265377/0250171.pdf en eng Duke University Press Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism volume 25, issue 2, page 171-181 ISSN 0799-0537 1534-6714 journal-article 2021 crdukeunivpr https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9384374 2024-05-07T13:17:00Z This review essay asserts that Aaron Kamugisha’s 2019 Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition, for all its brilliance, does not do justice to the thought of C. L. R. James, especially in relation to gender. After claiming that Kamugisha mostly misses the emancipatory and at times radical aspects of James’s feminist thinking, which was developed most fully during his years in the United States (1938–52), the author allows that the omission appears to be not deliberate but an unintended consequence of Kamugisha’s faithful following of the dominant North Atlantic interpretation of the “American James.” In particular, the author sees Kamugisha as seeming to accept without question the hegemonic Americanist assumption that James took a romantic excursion in the United States, and thus Beyond Coloniality neglects the deeply gendered analysis at the heart of James’s 1950 manuscript that eventually found publication in 1993 as American Civilization. Although James certainly never got out of “gender jail” in his lifetime, American Civilization betrayed his hopeful vision of escape. This essay proposes to Kamugisha that a careful and independent reading of this text could have revealed James as a far more sophisticated failure than the virtually helpless figure drawn in Beyond Coloniality. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Duke University Press Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 25 2 171 181 |
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This review essay asserts that Aaron Kamugisha’s 2019 Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition, for all its brilliance, does not do justice to the thought of C. L. R. James, especially in relation to gender. After claiming that Kamugisha mostly misses the emancipatory and at times radical aspects of James’s feminist thinking, which was developed most fully during his years in the United States (1938–52), the author allows that the omission appears to be not deliberate but an unintended consequence of Kamugisha’s faithful following of the dominant North Atlantic interpretation of the “American James.” In particular, the author sees Kamugisha as seeming to accept without question the hegemonic Americanist assumption that James took a romantic excursion in the United States, and thus Beyond Coloniality neglects the deeply gendered analysis at the heart of James’s 1950 manuscript that eventually found publication in 1993 as American Civilization. Although James certainly never got out of “gender jail” in his lifetime, American Civilization betrayed his hopeful vision of escape. This essay proposes to Kamugisha that a careful and independent reading of this text could have revealed James as a far more sophisticated failure than the virtually helpless figure drawn in Beyond Coloniality. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Neptune, H. Reuben |
spellingShingle |
Neptune, H. Reuben Gender and the Americanist James |
author_facet |
Neptune, H. Reuben |
author_sort |
Neptune, H. Reuben |
title |
Gender and the Americanist James |
title_short |
Gender and the Americanist James |
title_full |
Gender and the Americanist James |
title_fullStr |
Gender and the Americanist James |
title_full_unstemmed |
Gender and the Americanist James |
title_sort |
gender and the americanist james |
publisher |
Duke University Press |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9384374 http://read.dukeupress.edu/small-axe/article-pdf/25/2%20(65)/171/1265377/0250171.pdf |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism volume 25, issue 2, page 171-181 ISSN 0799-0537 1534-6714 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9384374 |
container_title |
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism |
container_volume |
25 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
171 |
op_container_end_page |
181 |
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1800757600630865920 |