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 Open Mikeby Michael Eric DysonDec 23, 2002
DescriptionHere, collected for the first time, are interviews and essays representing Michael Eric Dyson's most important thinking on race and identity. Exploring such topics as "whiteness" as seen through a black man's eye, modernism and postmodernism in black culture, and the emancipating role of black music from the plantation to the ghetto, Open Mike is a perfect introduction to Dyson's work and a must-have for students and scholars in African American Studies and Cultural Studies. Reviews"Open Mike is an exemplary book that, with eloquence and grace, discusses some of the most pressing and complex issues of our time - black masculinity, identity politics, the reception of feminism in communities of color, homophobia, postmodernism. These interviews make an important theoretical and philosophical contribution to our understanding of how politics and ethics are inseparable from our conceptions of race and identity. This is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about the meaning of racism, equality, and about how we might transform our contemporary world." "I have the view that it is better to have views than arguments. I think Mike Dyson shares my view, though he often has arguments. He describes himself as a "rhetorical acrobat," so that the genre of the interview wonderfully matches Dyson's extraordinary mind, helping us see connections that otherwise go unnoticed. He has something of interest to say about almost everything. Who other than Mike Dyson would spot Tupac as a natural theologian? Dyson's mind and spirit are free from cant because not only is he a radical thinker who refuses to say anything other than the truth, but he is also a man of courage. It is fun to read these interviews, but even better, reading them I believe can make the reader better." "This book-length series of interviews with Michael Eric Dyson - one of the most eloquent and wide-ranging black public intellectuals - makes available, in an accessible form, his considered views on an extraordinary range of topics in the current cultural-political agenda. He moves fluently between academic and popular audiences, between 'high theory' and 'low life,' Tupac Shakur and Nietzsche. He is a master of the 'stylistic etiquette' of both black radical discourse and the rhetorical traditions of the black church, and brings a high critical and spiritual intelligence to bear on the contemporary dilemmas of black folks." "In these edifying and impassioned conversations, Michael Eric Dyson addresses an astounding range of issues from post-modern theory and rap music to the creation of white identity and homophobia in the black church. In so doing, he reveals himself to be a master bridge builder, skillfully spanning the gaps between academic discourse and popular culture, ebonics and standard English, the secular and religious realms, and the races in American society. Righteously angry, but never rancorous, proud of his humble roots, but unsentimental about the costs of resisting all mainstream culture, he shows that Gramsci's ideal of an 'organic intellectual' arising from his people, but resisting seclusion in an 'ebony tower,' is still a possibility in the contemporary world." "Michael Eric Dyson is not only the most talented rhetorical acrobat in the academy - he also is one of the most courageous and engaged intellectuals in America. His Open Mike is a challenging siren to us all." "In these interviews, Michael Dyson displays the same extraordinary abilities he displayed when he taught a class for me (gratis) last semester: enormous learning, enormous street-smarts, enormous passions, and, containing them all, an enormous yet finally attractive ego. Who else but Dyson could declare solemnly, 'I was nurtured in a rhetorical womb' and then proceed to make it stick?" "Michael Eric Dyson is an interesting man, able to cover more bases than most American intellectuals can. This book - a sort of autobiography in the form of interviews - is a good way of making his acquaintance." "Mike Dyson describes himself as a 'bridge builder,' who wants 'to span the streets and the academy, and the sacred and secular,' traditions and their transformations, over much of the range of human experience. A highly ambitious enterprise, and remarkably, in these fascinating interviews he succeeds. Effortlessly and with conviction, he weaves together a range of themes from gangsta rap to graduate seminars, deepening them with highly varied and vividly portrayed personal experience. Though the focus is on the black experience, with its rich and complex dimensions, he also shows how the implications reach far beyond." Selling TerritoryWorld |
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