Black Gay Man: Essays [Paperback]

Robert F. Reid-Pharr (Author), Samuel R. Delany (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814775039 | ISBN-13: 978-0814775035 | Publication Date: April 1, 2001

At turns autobiographical, political, literary, erotic, and humorous, Black Gay Man will spoil our preconceived notions of not only what it means to be black, gay and male but also what it means to be a contemporary intellectual. Both a celebration of black gay male identity as well as a powerful critique of the structures that allow for the production of that identity, Black Gay Man introduces the eloquent new voice of Robert Reid-Pharr in cultural criticism.

At once erudite and readable, the range of topics and positions taken up in Black Gay Man reflect the complexity of American life itself. Treating subjects as diverse as the Million Man March, interracial sex, anti-Semitism, turn of the century American intellectualism as well as literary and cultural figures ranging from Essex Hemphill and Audre Lorde to W.E.B. DuBois, Frantz Fanon and James Baldwin, Black Gay Man is a bold and nuanced attempt to question prevailing ideas about community, desire, politics and culture. Moving beyond critique, Reid-Pharr also pronounces upon the promises of a new America. With the publication of Black Gay Man, Robert Reid-Pharr is sure to take his place as one of this country's most exciting and challenging left intellectuals.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"If there is one thing that marks us as queer... it is undoubtedly our relationship to the body," writes Reid-Pharr in this startling and provocative collection of essays detailing his intellectual (and erotic) life as a black, gay man living in a racist, heterosexual, postmodern world. Covering a wide range of topics black anti-Semitism, the Million Man March, interracial sex, the black family, gay male identity and lesbianism Reid-Pharr presents a cogent analysis that combines the personal with the political, the intellectual with the emotional and the erotic. Several essays gracefully unite literary and social concerns as when he uses the works of Frantz Fanon, George Jackson's letters from prison and the poems of Phyllis Wheatley to explicate the political position of black women in the nuclear family. Meanwhile, Reid-Pharr can be equally insightful and poetic when describing the meanings of his own sexual adventures with white men. An associate professor of English at Johns Hopkins, he demonstrates his training in literature in lengthy discussions of such works as Piri Thomas's Down These Mean Streets, Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and the posthumously published poetry of Gary Fisher. But the vitality and importance of this collection resides in Reid-Pharr's ability to move these works and their themes from the limited analysis of the academy into a broader realm of lived experience and social context that makes them, as well as Reid-Pharr's own thoughts, vital and genuinely consequential. (July)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A wonderful thing of work and play, feeling and thought, that moves through my brain as though I needed to be reminded of why I chose life as an intellectual. Reading Black Gay Man I realized once again that we all do indeed need to be reminded that to think, write, and read about identity, in this moment of fear and hysteria around a 'different' world, is to assist a necessary articulation: the new trying to make itself out of--not separate from--the carcass of the old."

-Wahneema Lubiano,Duke University

"Considering political events, publications, social movements and cultural developments that emerge from the early 1960s through the end of the twentieth century, Robert Reid-Pharr looks outward so as to interrogate the very self he is understood to comprise. The result is a sort of anti-memoir of black gay male experience--a sustained rumination that so insistently inhabits the terms of that identity that it explodes them from the inside, making it impossible for any of us to bear them in quite the same way that we previously had."

-Phillip Brian Harper,author of Private Affairs: Critical Ventures in the Culture of Social Relations

"Startling and provocative. . . . Reid-Pharr presents a cogent analysis that combines the personal with the political, the intellectual with the emotional and the erotic. . . . Reid-Pharr's ability to move these works-and their themes-from the limited analysis of the academy into a broader realm of lived experience and social context that makes them, as well as Reid-Pharr's own thoughts, vital and genuinely consequential."

-Publisher's Weekly,

"Repeated readings are richly rewarded."

-CHOICE,

"Reid-Pharr brilliantly puts the ambivalences of bodily pleasure back into the serious business of identity politics."

-Project Muse Book Review,

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814775039
• ISBN-13: 978-0814775035
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #709,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars deceptive title from a hyper-academic writer, September 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Gay Man: Essays (Paperback)

TO NONACADEMIC READERS: Be forewarned! Don't let the title deceive you. This is not a cute, accessible anthology with writings that would interest the average gay, black man. This is not "Brother to Brother" or "Fighting Words." This is a series of musings from a professor that is clearly trying to impress a tenure review board. TO ACADEMIC READERS: Reid-Pharr gives nine chapters which deal with theoretical questions on race, sexuality, and gender. The title is supposed to scare you in its seeming essentialism. The book is divided into three sections: black, gay, and man; but these are arbitrary. Reid-Pharr's project is to critique obtuse, overly "socially-constructed" academic hyperbabble without returning to played-out identity politics. However, this book is just as theoretically burdensome as any other recent cultural studies. Shockingly, the author never once mentions postmodernism and only discusses modernism. A lot of this book seems borrowed: the grotesque picture on the cover smacks of Mapplethorpe; the raunchy sexual tales are influenced by Delaney; the "I'm a lesbian" line comes from Sedgwick and Francisco Valdes. I usually would say all black gay lit. enthusiasts should buy something like this; but I can't say that this time. This book is going to disappoint many. It reminds me of Hazel Carby's weird "Race Men" book.