The African American Novel in the 21st century | prof. Anna Pochmara and prof. Raphaël Lambert (Kansai University)

The African American experience is the American experience, insisted the early 20th-century novelist Ralph Ellison in his famous novel “The Invisible Man”. W.E.B. Dubois, a prominent Black thinker said that America wouldn’t be America without the African American experience. Yet Black authors still have to struggle for their positions in the American literary canon, despite their works being a significant part of the American culture since the 19th century. In this episode, we discuss new trends and tendencies in the contemporary African American novel while trying to draw a continuity between the present and the past. 

This episode’s guests, Professor Anna Pochmara from the English Institute at the Faculty of Modern Languages and Professor Raphaël Lambert from Kansai University in Osaka touch upon the problematization of the Black experience in the African American novel. Is there such a thing as an authentic black experience and can it be expressed in literature? How has Blackness been redefined since the Civil Rights Movement? 

Prof. Pochmara and Prof. Lambert put the genre of Black literature in its historical context, showing us how necessary it is to understand history to understand the present. We discuss Obama’s America, Black Lives Matter, the controversial concept of postracial America – and how these political settings and ideas affected Black art and literature. We dive into the concept of Afropessimism, and the reasons why slavery is being revisited in contemporary literature. Finally, just like in other episodes about literature, we also recommend many novels – and tell you why you should read them.

Host: Maria Łusakowska, Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw

Guests: Anna Pochmara (English Institute, University of Warsaw), Raphaël Lambert (Kansai University in Osaka)

Mentioned in this episode:

Anna Pochmara, The Making of the New Negro (2011)

Anna Pochmara, The Nadir and the Zenith (2021)

Raphaël Lambert, Narrating the Slave Trade, Theorizing Community (2019)

Raphaël Lambert, Black Hopes/Black Woes: Early African American Optimism and Twenty-first Century Afropessimism (coming in 2024)

Saidiya Hartman, "The Afterlife of Slavery"

Frantz Fanon (French/martinique philosopher), The Wretched of the Earth (1961)

Post-racial era 

Afropessimism (Frank B. Wilderson III)

Afropolitanism (Tayie Selasi)

Novels mentioned and recommended:

Americanah (2013) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison 

Erasure (2001) by Percival Everett 

Giovanni’s Room (1956) by James Baldwin 

Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois (2021) by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) by Alex Haley

The Sellout (2015) by Paul Beatty

The Underground Railroad (2016) by Colson Whitehead 

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