User talk:Brian Sweeney

African American literature

Brian, thanks for your great edits to the African American literature article. Still, while you've added in good material, I have concerns about some of the information you deleted from the article and your attempt to change the article to reflect a "broader, transnational African diasporic context." Also, why did you delete the entire characteristics section? That seems like a useful section to me. Finally, the lead now feels too short and not informative enough for someone who merely reads the lead and not the rest of the article (my understanding is that the lead should summarize the entire article).

I deleted some "characteristics" stuff and relocated others elsewhere. The claims I deleted seemed to me uncritically to essentialize African American literary production and in any case were unsourced. (I retained a sentence about oral tradition which you rightly complain is unsourced.) My intention was to restore a much revised "Characteristics" section but in a form that emphasizes debates over the meaning of African American lit rather than conveys the illusion of consensus. Re: Length of lead--I don't think length is valuable intrinsically. The original lead was longer but was also needlessly repetitive and redundant; e.g., basically narrating the history of African American lit from C18 to present two times over, as you can see here [1]. Moreover the original lead described Af Am lit as "literature written by, about, and sometimes specifically for African Americans." This is a highly controversial definition (I am thinking specifically of the second & third parts of the definition) and so I removed it from the presumably more objective first paragraph & plan to incorporate it into a later paragraph on debates over what constitutes an Af Am literary work (cf. Claudia Tate's discussion of this in Psychoanalysis and Black Novels [1998].)

That said, I like your ideas on fleshing out the relationship between slave narratives and early African American novels and adding a section on major theories of Af Am lit from Gates, Baker and Toni Morrison (although the section should include more theories than simply theirs).

Yeah, I agree.

I think, though, that as you do this you need to provide references to statements as you go. For example, while it is true that "African American writing has tended to draw on oral forms such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues and rap" we need a reference for statements like this.

The sentence regarding African American lit's drawing on oral tradition preexisted my edits. My only contribution was to move it to another spot and add "sermons." It will take us more than a few days to document everything that every previous editor has ever put into this article. I welcome your assistance in this endeavor!

As for the "broader, transnational African diasporic context," I'd like to discuss this before changing the article to reflect this view. While I'm not certain this is the approach to take with the article, I'm also not totally opposed to it and definately believe some elements of that should be included. Again, we'd need solid references to back up any of this which we added.

Re: situating African American lit in broader transnational context; cf. Gilroy Black Atlantic (1993). It is suprising to me that there should be any controversy about this--any more than it would be controversial to situate a regional literature like Southern US lit in a larger national literary & cultural context. To treat Af Am lit as a self-contained national tradition (as the original WP article does) without gesturing to its participation in a larger African diasporic culture is very 1980s.

Hope you are enjoying CZ and the pilot project. Also, please note that I'll be traveling to a funeral for a few days and not online. Best, --Jason Sanford 15:07, 1 November 2006 (CST)

I invite you to restore information I deleted you think is of importance.Brian Sweeney 11:29, 2 November 2006 (CST)

Thanks for the detailed response. I'm relieved to hear you will be working on a new "characteristics" section, which was my main issue, and your other comments sound equally good. Go for it and work up what you can (being sure to provide the needed references). I'll join in on the article as I get the time. As for the "broader, transnational African diasporic context," as I said there's nothing wrong with adding that, especially with regards to African American literary theories which emerged in the 1970s and made much of the diasporic context (although there were some who also made the connections in the early 1900s). Best, --Jason Sanford 12:51, 6 November 2006 (CST)

Jason, I appreciate your interest in my edits to the African American literature page, but I have to admit to being annoyed with the tone of your comments. My impression was that editors would vet content, not order authors around as though they were paid staff writers. As I see it, it is my prerogative to make the changes I think appropriate and then you can exercise editorial oversight as you see fit. I do not expect to be ordered around, however, or have to seek your approval in advance for edits. If this is the way relationships between editors and authors are going to work at CZ, well then, I have grave doubts about its success. Brian Sweeney 16:19, 6 November 2006 (CST)