Solomon Thurman, co-founder of the 10th Street Gallery located in North St. Louis, laments, “There needs to be more black artists being used in the general public and not necessarily in a gallery setting…It [public art] should be used as part of the educational system so that kids could understand how they can express themselves and the different ways they can express themselves” (qtd. in Davis). Thurman’s clarion call reflects the dearth of public art--either by African American artists or using African American subject-matter--located throughout St. Louis’s northside. As captured in Jasmine Mahmoud’s “Touring a Divided City”: “North St. Louis is…an arts desert” (Mahmoud). Aligned with the civic spirit demanded by the comments of Thurman and Mahmoud, DOORWAYS is pleased to announce the installation of an edition of Rumors of War, the salient and timely work by Kehinde Wiley. Wiley’s Rumors of War will be placed at the entrance to the new campus of DOORWAYS, soon to open in North St. Louis. The Gateway Foundation enriches St. Louis life and culture through the acquisition and placement of sculpture for public enjoyment throughout the region. Gateway worked closely with DOORWAYS to bring this extraordinary artwork to a site and an organization that is a perfect match for its content.
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    DOORWAYS is an interfaith non-profit organization. The organization provides housing and related supportive services to improve quality of life and health outcomes for people affected by HIV/AIDS. The new location, at 1100 N. Jefferson Avenue, will support those from within and without the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood. As stated on DOORWAYS’ website, 
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    This edition of Wiley’s sculpture--standing about four feet tall--will be placed on DOORWAYS’ new campus, just a stone’s throw from Carr Lane Visual and Performing Arts Middle School, La Salle Public Charter Middle School, and Gateway MST Middle School. The sculpture will be prominently displayed before the North Jefferson entrance of the DOORWAYS campus. In a city divided by conceptions of race, poverty, access to public education, health care, transportation, and public art, the installation of Rumors of War within the boundaries of Jeff-Vander-Lou should be considered the start of a process to reverse and challenge the idea that no public art exists above Delmar in St. Louis. Visitors to the public artwork will be able to experience the edition of Wiley’s bronze statue. DOORWAYS’ decision to place Rumors of War within the boundaries of Jeff-Vander-Lou should be recognized as a first retort to Thurman’s call, espousing the quiet certitude that is St. Louis. A quiet certitude engendered by a collective will to move forward together and an ethos only born in the Show-Me State. The installation of Wiley’s Rumors of War represents the beginning of a trend that will not only work to revitalize a sense of communal belonging among St. Louisans in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood, but the continuation of a thriving African American arts tradition dating back at least to the times of Scott Joplin.

    Discussions of public art differ, dramatically in some cases. Still, the definition advocated in “Blue Springs Public Art Commission Program Definitions,” and explicated by Jack Becker in 2004’s Monograph, is instructive--particularly as relates St. Louis and the roles of public art. According to the Blue Springs Public Art Commission, “Public art is artwork in the public realm, regardless of whether it is situated on public or private property” (qtd. in Doss 2). This definition of public art is instructive for a number of reasons: The statement is very liminal in nature. That is, the statement is inherently binary, containing antimonies reflecting the duality that is St. Louis, dualities themselves contained within the multiplicity of artworks created by Wiley. Located within the Compromise State, St. Louis has long existed between the twin axes of unlimited freedoms and humanity for some and delimited, circumscribed citizenship and the pursuit of happiness for others. The concept of the “public realm” captures this duality: at once belonging to the public--but the fief and domain of kings and higher authorities--this understanding of public art not only acknowledges contemporary conceptions of the democratization of St. Louis’s public sphere but the medieval underpinnings of King Louis’s city and its historical approaches to the roles, purposes, and functions of public art. The “realm,” historically envisioned as “kingdom,” has also come to mean “a field or domain of activity or interest.” Interestingly, public art, then, serves as a vehicle by which to transform the kingdom into a field of play reflecting the interests of the public. The difficulty lies in how to approach such a transformation. For, as Michael Warner reminds us in “The Mass Public and the Mass Subject”: “No one really inhabits the general public…everyone brings to such a category the particularities from which one has to abstract oneself in consuming this discourse” (252). The installation of Rumors of War demonstrates how such a transformation of the public sphere can take place. Taking into consideration the particularities from which residents of St. Louis’s northside, in general, and the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood, in particular, have to abstract themselves--seemingly from positions within an arts desert--the selection of Rumors of War suggests a desire to not only revitalize the discourse taking place within public spaces but to revitalize the discourse being consumed. A gesture quite worthy of acknowledgment and celebration. 


Kehinde Wiley and Rumors of War
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    Kehinde Wiley was born in 1977. He was raised in Los Angeles, California. His very lineage resides at the intersection of the Old World and the New World: Wiley’s father is Nigerian; his mother, African American. Best known for his 2018 portrait of President Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery, Wiley owes his passionate attachments and approaches to portraiture--particularly as regards painting--to a brief experience at an arts conservatory in Russia. Just the same, Wiley earned his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999 and his MFA from the School of Art at Yale University in 2001. His first solo show--Passing/Posing--premiered at the Hoffman Gallery in Chicago in 2005. The show 

In Passing/Posing, the viewing audience is introduced to some of Wiley’s first attempts at projecting a more inclusive American society and world. The placement of urban, black, male figures within high classical European settings suggests welcoming entry-points into the worlds of prestige, clout, power, wealth, and influence usually denied to representatives of the socioeconomically lower classes.

​    Today, according to Dereck Conrad Murray in “Kehinde Wiley: Splendid Bodies,” “Wiley has emerged as the most prominent of what could be regarded as..[the avant-garde] of Post-Black artists…the prototypical exemplar of [a] new Post-Black aesthetic in his envisioning of blackness beyond abjection and racial trauma” (92). That is, Wiley’s works and subject matter function to transcend overdetermined understandings of blackness resulting from histories centered on defeat, negation, and occlusion. Wiley’s works move past inherited understandings of what it means to be black. This aesthetic approach has been captured most poignantly during Wiley’s recent tenure in St. Louis. During 2017, in the aftermath of the murder of Michael Brown and the Ferguson uprisings, Wiley visited neighborhoods in North St. Louis and Ferguson where he invited strangers he met to pose for his paintings. Wiley then created eleven original portraits inspired by carefully chosen artworks in the collection of the St. Louis Art Museum. “Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis,” an exhibition held at the St. Louis Art Museum October 19, 2018–February 10, 2019, culminated from the work conducted among citizens of the northside. 

​     Wiley’s cross-generic approach to painting as evinced in Passing/Posing and “Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis” has also been captured in the artist’s initial series of painting artworks entitled, Rumors of War. The title for the series signifies on Matthew 24:6--“And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” The series is comprised of “monumental equestrian portraits in ornate gilded frames with spermatozoa motifs that announced the portraits as blatant expressions of potency and wealth” (Russo). The catch: the riders are depicted as predominantly young, black, and male. As Wiley acknowledges, he deliberately creates “a high-priced luxury good for wealthy consumers…[appealing] to the aesthetic principles of a very elite social class…it’s an absolute celebration of decadence and empire” (qtd. in Russo). The Rumors of War series is directed to a diverse public and Wiley’s employment of historical references creates controversies and conversations that are in dialogue with existing artworks.

A Revitalization of Mind and Body
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    That there is a dearth of public art in North St. Louis may be debatable in some circles. Most agree that as compared to the section of the city south of Delmar: North St. Louis is an arts desert and there is no public art above Delmar. Delmar Boulevard represents the locus of all the antimonies and binaries associated with the city of St. Louis. This mistaken approach to the demographic characteristics of St. Louis suggests that all things South are good and all things North are bad. A misconception badly in need of repair. Still, Tina Pihl of Union Communion Ministries points out that there were eighteen free concerts in St. Louis in 2016. That is, the arts events were open to the public. Two were held in North St. Louis; sixteen, in South St. Louis. The existence of public art venues has long been understood to reflect a vibrant, thriving city. Robert Duffy writes, in “Why Public Art?”, that “governments--totalitarian and democratic alike--employ works of art to establish a sense of potency in public. A good and ubiquitous example is the proliferation of equestrian monuments, where kings, warriors, and statesmen are portrayed in attitudes of triumph and power” (28). The seeming unequal distribution of public artworks, such as concerts, suggests that public life in North St. Louis, at least in 2016, inspires neither a sense of communal belonging nor potency. Moreover, if equestrian monuments are ubiquitous in the display of public attitudes towards triumph and power, then the lack of equestrian monuments located in North St. Louis suggests a powerless northern public conditioned to defeat. While this may be true of areas such as Jeff-Vander-Lou historically, the installation of Wiley’s Rumors of War represents a liminal fulcrum--a threshold, a gateway, a doorway--to revitalizing the mind, body, and artistic spirits of St. Louis’s northside citizenry.

​    As I type, there are three equestrian monuments located in the city of St. Louis--four, if you count the winged-horses adorning Soldiers Memorial, located just west of Citygarden in the Central Business District. St. Louis’s most obvious equestrian monument, and only overshadowed by the Arch and the Old Courthouse as regards symbolizing the city, is Apotheosis of St. Louis, located in Forest Park on Art Hill. The majestic bronze statue of the city’s namesake and warrior-king Louis IX, donated to St. Louis by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company and unveiled in 1906, sits before the main entrance to the St. Louis Art Museum. Also joining the bronze sculpture of King Louis on the park’s grounds in 1906 is a bronze sculpture of General Franz Sigel of the Union Army. The general is positioned on horseback. And finally, there is Fernando Botero’s 2005 bronze sculpture, Man on Horse--also on loan from the Gateway Foundation--located in Clayton, Missouri, a west county suburb of St. Louis. While Apotheosis of St. Louis and General Franz Sigel certainly represent white, male, powerful, triumphant personalities within the consciousness of the St. Louis public, Botero’s Man on Horse reflects a sort of St. Louis Everyman. Considering St. Louis’s racial history, Wiley’s Rumors of War would add to the count of equestrian monuments in most significant ways. 

    First, Rumors of War springs from the imagination of an African American artist. When contemplating the revitalization of African American arts traditions of the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood, DOORWAYS and its partners--including the Gateway Foundation--have acted thoughtfully and reflectively and responsibly regarding the installation of the first artist to have an equestrian monument placed in North St. Louis. The Gateway Foundation has been a great civic resource in bringing art to the public realm in the St. Louis region for many years. In commissioning and lending major sculptures to a wide array of neighborhoods and communities, Gateway has made important works of art available to audiences who may not have had access before. Rumors of War illustrates their mission and method—making a thoughtful match between art and public. In this case, a major work by an extraordinarily well-recognized artist will be sited in a place where its subject is relevant and meaningful to those who live, go to school, and spend time in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood. Since the postbellum era, the Jeff-Vander-Lou section of North St. Louis has longed served as an African American enclave. And long vibrant--though now seemingly simmering--arts traditions have served to undergird feelings of communal belonging and incorporation into the city of St. Louis proper. For example, while its history is undoubtedly racially fraught, the fact that Fairgrounds Park sits at the northern periphery of the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood should be acknowledged, particularly concerning access to public art. With respect to feelings of triumph and power engendered by equestrian monuments, the reception of Rumors of War would generate controversies and conversations within the public sphere differently, if crafted at the hands of a white artist. As Matthew Barbee reminds us in Race and Masculinity in Southern Memory, “public art [serves] as a reflection of communal standards of citizenship” (5). The selection of a white artist, for example, would continue a long line of history that suggests African Americans are incapable of producing art reflective of communal standards of citizenship--the very history from which the selection of Wiley works to jettison us guarantees such.
            
    Second, Wiley’s subject-matter speaks not only to global and national and local audiences in indirect ways; Wiley’s subject-matter speaks to audiences of the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood in direct ways, particularly as regards modes of representation. As the contemporary discussions centered on the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site evince, the histories of African American men and women residing in Jeff-Vander-Lou have long been ignored, elided, and occluded. Wiley’s placement of a young African American male on horseback reflecting feelings of pride, triumph, and power over a traditionally African American enclave not only pays homage to the histories of African Americans in Jeff-Vander-Lou, but the seeming youthfulness of the rider suggests great promise regarding the future of the young African Americans residing there in the contemporary moment. Just as the selection of Wiley, an African American artist, sparks controversies and discussions in ways different as compared to the selection of a non-black artist, the selection of a white rider or nondescript rider--as is the case with Botero’s Man on Horse--would spark controversies and discussions in manners that are different as compares the selection of a young, black, male rider. Unlike the composition of the Arthur Ashe Memorial--and its seemingly inferior juxtaposition with the might and power of Confederate equestrian monuments located on Richmond’s Monument Avenue--Wiley’s young, African American male rider holds his own when juxtaposed with Apotheosis of St. Louis. 
            
    Third, the decision to place Rumors of War not only in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood, but on the grounds of DOORWAYS and across the street from Gateway MST Middle School, La Salle Middle School, and Carr Lane VPA Elementary School facilitates Thurman’s call for the integration of public art into the educational system so that kids can understand how they can express themselves and the different ways they can express themselves. Moreover, DOORWAYS’ North Jefferson location invites celebration from the residents of the city of St. Louis, in general, and from African Americans residing in Jeff-Vander-Lou, specifically. African American citizens living in Jeff-Vander-Lou have historically suffered disparities in access to health care and healthcare outcomes, along with access to public art. Let us not forget that Joplin apparently died of an undiagnosed health impairment. Just the same, in today’s climate we have come to recognize that such health care and health outcome disparities are engendered, at least in part, by the low socioeconomic statuses of many of the residents of Jeff-Vander-Lou--once again, underscoring the elevated need for a multiplicity of approaches to revitalizing North St. Louis. Just as the installation of Rumors of War works to facilitate different and more productive manners of revitalizing the minds and spirits of northside citizens through facilitating access to public art, DOORWAYS is dedicated to improving the bodies of the citizens of the northside. 
          
    Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War challenges us to reimage St. Louis’s historical identity--or, at least, one of its historical identities. The piece reflects the liminal qualities so inherent to St. Louis. At once medieval and contemporary, old and new, black (subject-matter) and (traditionally) white (setting), elitist and democratic, Rumors of War reflects the respective desires of DOORWAYS, and the Gateway Foundation, to not only play significant roles in the revitalization of the artistic souls and physical bodies of fellow citizens in North St. Louis and the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood, but to acknowledge the historical partnership of African Americans within the Kingdom of Culture that is the city of St. Louis. And, in doing so, DOORWAYS and its partner institutions have engendered the support, trust, and buy-in from northside citizens like myself as relates their respective visions of the revitalization of North St. Louis and the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood. Their efforts represent a threshold--a liminal portal--to Rumors of War for those living above and below Delmar. Their efforts represent first steps in the creation of a more inclusive American society in the contemporary moment.
 


 
 
Works Cited
 
Barbee, Matthew Mace. Race and Masculinity in Southern Memory: History of Richmond, Virginia’s Monument Avenue, 1948-1996. Lexington Books, 2014.
 
Davis, Chad. “St. Louis Exhibits Shine a Light on African American Abstract Artists.” stlpr. https://news.stlpublicradio.org/arts/2019-10-10/st-louis-exhibits-shine-a-light-on-african-american-abstract-artists. Accessed 30 May 2021.
 
Doorways Housing. “Mission and History.” Doorways: Hope Lives Here. https://www.doorwayshousing.org/about-doorways/mission-and-history/
 
Doss, Erika. “Public Art Controversy: Cultural Expression and Civic Debate.” Monograph. https://artintheurbanenvironment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/doss_public-art-controversy.pdf Accessed 29 May 2021
 
Duffy, Robert. “Why Public Art?”. In Please Touch: Sculpture for a City. Gateway Foundation, 2016. 
 
Ha, Paul. Foreword. In Please Touch: Sculpture for a City. Gateway Foundation, 2016.
 
Mahmoud, Jasmine. “Touring the Divided City: How Neighborhoods United for Change Transforms St. Louis into a Journey Toward Equity.” The Common Reader: A Journal of the Essay. https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/touring-divided-city/. Accessed 29 May 2021.
 
Murray, Dereck Conrad. “Kehinde Wiley: Splendid Bodies.” In Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, (Number 21), 2007, pp. 90-101.
 
Russo. Jillian. “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic.” In Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015. 
 
Warner, Michael. “The Mass Public and the Mass Subject.” The Phantom Public Sphere, Social Text Series on Cultural Politics 5 edited by Bruce Robbins. University of
Minnesota Press, 1993, pp 234–256.

When I was young, a group of my childhood friends and I used to play Dungeons & Dragons often...very often. For those who are not as nerdily inclined, Dungeons & Dragons--or, D&D as it is affectionately referred--is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game that was originally released in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. D&D’s publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry. I loved the storylines and possibilities. I loved the dice--those funny eight- and ten- and twenty-sided dice. I loved creating characters and fighting dragons. Remember Tiamat? Oooooh! My favorite character-types were: the Elf; the Dwarf; the Cleric; the Rogue; and, the Wizard. My attractions to D&D were borne out of my interests in the Arthurian tales and characters like Merlin and Gawain. At the time, I gave little thought to Medieval Studies. I liked the excitement of getting together with my friends to create characters that went on adventures in the Rhineland of the Germanic forests or the fjords of Norway or the isthmuses of the Britons--ironically, we gathered in dilapidated dwellings in the ruins of what was once the Blackbelt of St. Louis and the Pruitt-Igoe projects near Cass Avenue and 20th Street. Quite the juxtaposition as compares settings of the Middle Ages. Still, my friends and I went on missions, rescued dames and princesses, and fought like hell to keep from being buggered. Poor black boys huddled in the slums of St. Louis dreaming of elves and dragons and potions and warriors and castles located in far-off places with difficult to pronounce names.

​As I aged and matured through life, I found myself in the academy under the guidance and tutelage of esteemed advisors and professors of Medieval Studies like Dr. Eileen Joy and Dr. Ruth Evans. Dr. Joy’s class re-introduced me to Bede and Ælfric, and exposed me to the Angelcynn and mechanic conceptions of the English people and race. Her class challenged me to consider how the English nation developed out of disparate, heterogeneous groupings of tribespeople. Dr. Evans’s class on medieval theatre--particularly as focused upon the Corpus Christi cycle--was elucidating as regards the roles of the transgressive and the carnivalesque within medieval English society. When combining my youthful approaches and curiosities of medieval literary productions with Joy’s mechanic notions of medieval approaches to race and Evans’s acknowledgment of the transgressive uses of language on the medieval stage, I become quite aghast at the current tenor and atmosphere of Medieval Studies in general with respect to scholars of color within the academy. Racial essentialism, censorship, and the delimitation of academic freedom have no place in Medieval Studies; the concepts should be thought anathema to the field.

In “Anglo-Saxon Studies, Academia and White Supremacy,” “Statement Regarding ICMS Kalamazoo,” and “Lost in Our Field: Racism and the International Congress on Medieval Studies” scholars Mary Rambaran-Olm, Seeta Chaganti, and Nahir I. Otaño Gracia, respectively, outline the state of race relations within the field of Medieval Studies as regards the dearth of Medievalists of Color (MoCs). More specifically, the scholars elucidate why MoCs are leaving the field and why MoCs feel unwelcome in their chosen fields of study and inquiry.
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Like me, Dr. Rambaran-Olm was drawn to the field as regards its literary beauty. She writes,

In great detail, Dr. Chaganti explains how the leadership of the organization refuses to create safe spaces for MoCs, allowing racist harassment not only online with respect to ICMS events but in-person during panel presentations and discussions. As Dr. Gracia explains, “ICMS in particular has now lost a valuable scholar [in] Dr. Seeta Chaganti, who will not return to the conference...ICMS has chosen to support whiteness and white supremacy...choosing panels proposed by white scholars over similar panels proposed by medievalists of color reinforces our societal bias in favor of white candidates over a minority” (Gracia). Dr. Gracia goes on to suggest that “while ICMS has recently offered to revisit the issue of panel selection process, I believe a deeper problem persists in what Dr. Chaganti calls their ‘miscomprehension of academic freedom,’ which ‘has enabled white supremacy’” (Gracia). As a result of ICMS’s miscomprehension of academic freedom, Dr. Gracia, too, has stopped attending ICMS. Too many instances of being misgendered and undervalued as a scholar by members of the leadership apparatus associated with ICMS, specifically, have led to Gracia’s self-imposed exile from the organization.
  
I am a Medievalist--among many, many other things. While I may never attend ICMS, I plan to publish on topics with respect to concepts associated with approaches to Medieval Studies and I plan to congregate among, and to associate with, other Medievalists, particularly scholars of Early Medieval England. I will NOT be pushed from the field. I find many of the concepts, theories, and structures of analysis developed as regards approaches to Medieval Studies useful in my scholarly endeavors--even those not seemingly connected to medievalism. For example, consider the historiographical concept translatio imperii. In the following discussion, I utilize translatio imperii to explain the significance of the character Erik “Killmonger” Stevens in the movie Black Panther.

Translatio imperii, or the transfer of imperium, refers to an approach to history that focuses on a centralized world power determined by linear succession of rule. This concept combines ideas of geography and genealogy as factors for determining the transfer of power between places. This transfer of power is determined in an unbroken and linear manner, and suggests that imperial power exists as an uninterrupted process of rule subject only to the movement of the demographic group possessing the power. In practice, this power is usually described as an incrementally western movement. This was a popular medieval model of history. Take, for example, the case of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. According to Geoffrey, in the Middle Ages imperial succession flows from Troy to Rome to Britain [1]. He describes how Aeneas of Troy founded Rome after the Trojan War. Then, Aeneas’s great-grandson Brutus--after being banished from Rome--founded Britain. Geoffrey describes Britain as inheriting the seat of imperial power from Rome; he exploits the importance of Britain in the course of world history by linking it to the great empires of earlier world history.

In Black Panther, the importance of African Americans in the course of world history--as represented by Erik Stevens--is exploited by linking Killmonger--and, by manner of substitution, all African Americans--to the great, mythical nation of Wakanda. The Black Panther and Wakanda’s exclusive hold over vibranium represent centralized world power determined by linear succession of rule...with a difference. Yes, T’Challa--the current Black Panther--is the son of T’Chaka, the Black Panther before him and a descendant of Bashenga. The mantle of the Black Panther transfers from T’Chaka to T’Challa as descended from Bashenga in a linear fashion. Still, ascendance to the Black Panther is a democratic, meritorious process in many ways. As depicted in the movie, all Wakandans who are eligible to become the Black Panther are born with a glowing sequence of characters on the inside of their bottom lips. As the son of Prince N’Jobu--T’Chaka’s brother--and an American woman from Oakland, California, Erik “Killmonger” Stevens--whose Wakandan name is N'Jadaka--is a cousin to T’Challa. And, a legitimate claimant to the throne. When Killmonger defeats (only temporarily) T’Challa and usurps the Black Panther, translatio imperii occurs. The transfer of power goes from T’Chaka to T’Challa to N'Jadaka. On one hand, this succession of power falls in line with normative understandings of translation imperii: after all, both T’Chaka and N’Jobu are princes descended from Bashenga. Nevertheless, this repetition of translatio imperii as relates Wakanda in comparison to its occurrence within the Western tradition does exhibit a difference. In a sense, the transfer of power is NOT unbroken, for Killmonger is an exiled prince in a foreign land: the United States. Not only does Killmonger’s ascension to the throne represent a break in the line of succession as relates T’Chaka’s familial line, but his ascension represents a western movement of power: from eastern Africa to western United States. Still and all, as regards the line of Bashenga, Killmonger’s ascension to the Black Panther suggests that imperial power exists as an uninterrupted process of rule subject only to the movement of the demographic group possessing the power: the Panther Cult.

This thought experiment, utilizing the historiographical concept translatio imperii, will be developed with greater emphasis in the forthcoming “Medievalists of Color” special issue of Quimbandas: Explorations of Identities. I would implore MoCs seeking a safe place to engage in professional scholarship to consider submitting to the journal or serving as a reviewer. More information coming soon.

Notes
[1] I discuss Geoffrey and translatio imperii with greater detail in 2012’s “A Jay Without Decency.” In the paper, I suggest that the imperium of the cocaine trade is transferred from Richard Porter to Jay-Z within the narrative landscape of Shawn Carter.

Works Cited

Chaganti, Seetha. “Statement Regarding ICMS Kalamazoo.” Medievalists of Color, 9 July 2018.

Otaño Gracia, Nahir I. “Lost in Our Field: Racism and the International Congress on Medieval
    Studies.” Medievalists of Color, 24 July 2018.

Rambaran-Olm, Mary. “Anglo-Saxon Studies, Academia and White Supremacy.” Medium, 27 June
    2018.

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This is the pilot episode of a weekly news program Tallis Piaget is launching called The Black News Hour. It will be something comparable to the daily show with news stories regarding Black America. The first 20-25 minutes is the news, the last 30 minutes is a discussion. I hope you find it informative and entertaining. Remember this is the first episode so a perfect presentation isn't apparent yet. The show will definitely improve as we continue to grow. Constructive criticism, important stories, guest, and other ideas are welcomed. Featuring author and host Tallis Piaget, writer and journalist Sylvester Brown, Jr. and our founder, social activist and writer Tarrell Rodney Campbell.

English doctoral student and writer Tarrell Rodney Campbell presents his research on the social justice implications of functioning as an African American writing consultant at a predominantly white institution, while serving a nontraditional, international clientele. The presentation is entitled "Practicing Social Justice@UWS: Presence, Policy, Purpose."

         I write to know myself. I write because I don’t know myself. I write because I want Others to know me. I write to keep my thoughts to myself. I write because some of my ancestors could not. I write because I can. I live to write; I write to live. I write for immortality; I write because I am mortal. I write to connect to spirits past, circling above-head searching for a place of safe landing. I write because of Cornel West: he is a hellava influence. I write for Baldwin, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Clemens, Wallace, Shakur, Carter, Davidson, Davis, Taha, Gerima, Shahbaz, Moore, Glaspy, Farrington, Muhammad, Payne, Campbell. I write to find myself lost in a world without coordinates. I write because I am not sure if we are really here. I write because of Descartes and Locke; because of Mafouz and ibn Battutu. I write because ignorance dominates the world; speculation, a close second. I write because I don’t know my father, my mother, my brother, my sisters; I write because I want my family. I write because this moment is gone: to ensure that I am present for the next (this one). I write because I am afraid of my supreme self-confidence. I write because I am poor. I write because I have wealth. I write because I am loved; I write because I am love.   

          In his latest blog posting, “The Blog as Literary Genre,” Kevin Eagan of Critical Margins asks, “Is the blog, in its mature form, a literary genre?” He believes, ultimately, that the blog is “a literary form or genre” and, although the blog “does more than an essay because of its playfulness, [i]n its play, it can move between personal diary entry and sophisticated essay with ease.” I agree and disagree with Kevin; but, above all I appreciate his blog’s prompt and call for a defined understanding of, and purpose for the blog, especially from one who is already a leader within our new generation of literary scholars.

Kevin Eagan
Writer, editor, blogger

          In full disclosure, I must admit that Eagan is my former university mate; our graduate tours overlapped at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. And so, it is with great pleasure and respect and seriousness that I approach Kevin’s question. First, let us address some terminology. I am a little uneasy with some of the descriptors used by Kevin. For example, what is a “mature blog?” Elsewhere in his posting, Eagan juxtaposes the seemingly untidy blog against the “tidy” novel and writes of blog postings evolving into “longer, more thoughtful articles” (italics mine). I think that using such descriptors destroy the concept of the blog and work towards confining the blog to an area where ideas of hierarchy begin to dominate and democracy begins to dissipate. To think of the blog as genre confines and destroys it; to think of the blog as literary form offers more freedom.

          As literary form, the blog already, always exists as what it is: written poetry or prose, made from letters, of a fiction or non-fiction distinction. To start speaking of the mature blog or tidy blog or longer, thoughtful blog is to begin to make valuations in relationship to particular blogs. To make such valuations would make one a critic of blogs. And do not get me wrong, we are trained to discuss the excellence of form regarding literature and its expression and whether or not the literature expresses universal ideas and interests, but the blog should not be confined to a genre: it is a literary pharmakon, a remedy and a poison. It should remain as such!

            When it comes to the anxiety that Kevin implicitly betrays regarding the nature and role and purpose of the blog, the blog itself is both remedy and poison to his problem. The blog is problematic and somewhat poisonous to the Academy from which Kevin and our ilk spring; the blog is poisonous to the hierarchy of genres and forms so analogous to the teaching of literature from ivory towers on high. At the same time, the blog is a remedy to any and all concerns and anxieties related to and engendered by a need to categorize literature(s). It removes such concerns. As literary pharmakon, the blog’s 

The blog should remain our literary tabula rasa; it should be blank every time we approach it; it should be a tool of literature, but not controlled by the structural rules of existing literatures. It should always, already remain ambivalent to literature. And, its ambivalence should 

          Allow the blog its free flowing, democratic nature. To place it within a genre, to make it the generic, robs the blog of its characteristic of instantaneous, always new creation. A blog is a place where thought experiments, like this one that I am having right now, can freely take place: a place where thought experiments can take place and where the arbiters of style and syntax and grammar are not welcome…unless they are. 

          Hello, world! Welcome to the first official posting of the Tarrell Rodney Campbell site. I guess I am a full-time blogger now! I was recently involved in a conversation, on Facebook (what has happened to man?), centered on Jesmyn Ward’s award-winning novel, Salvage the Bones. The conversation was initiated by Kelly Virella, founder, publisher and editor of Dominion of New York - the digital magazine for creative and forward-thinking black people who love New York and want to make the most of their lives there. Be sure to check out the Dominion of New York site: http://www.dominionofnewyork.com. Our conversation went something like this:

          And that brings us to today. In response to MF’s prompt, I want to discuss the nature and direction of my research regarding Salvage. I am interested in whether or not Ward, as an African American female novelist of the twenty-first century, continues in the tradition of some African American female novelists of the twentieth century with regards to queering conceptions of African American masculinity. In his work, Masculinist Impulses: Toomer, Hurston, Black Writing, and Modernity, Nathan Grant suggests that black women writers of the twentieth century are 

          I want to know: Does Ward continue in this tradition? If so, to what degree? What does adherence to, or, deviation from, such a tradition insinuate about the direction of the literature of African American female novelists in the early twenty-first century? Do Ward’s representations of African American men, manhood and masculinity in Salvage the Bones aid in developing a discourse/discourses of black masculinity responsive to the political and social impetus of any feminisms?

            To begin, let us all develop common ground regarding the word queer. In Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler does an excellent job of explicating the word queer and its changing use. In describing the use and meaning of the term in her analysis of Nella Larsen’s Passing, Butler declares:

           With regards to African American female novelists of the twenty-first century, I am interested in how the representations and characterizations of their male characters reflect a queering of African American masculinity; more specifically: to what degree do Ward’s representations of Esch’s father and brothers – Randall, Skeetah, Junior - and Esch’s romantic love interest, Manny, upset and expose concepts of African American middle-class patriarchal masculinity that the boys and men may have chosen for themselves? Do the representations of any of the African American male characters in Salvage reflect an understating of, or intuition reflecting, concepts of black masculinity that interrogate some of the inner reaches of black feminism(s) to aid in creating the discourse of a black masculinity responsive to feminism’s political and social impetus?

            Lastly, I believe that Naturalistic literature and catastrophe/disaster literature function similarly. Audiences are asked/expected/guided to understand the actions and motives of characters in light of the extremely powerful structural forces that control the milieu in which the characters find themselves in the literature. With that perspective in mind, to what degree has disaster literature become a tool, in the twenty-first century, in exposing, that is queering, structural inequities and inequalities that exist in the United States? More specifically, in the South – with regards to black men? How do such structural forces delimit the practice of middle-class patriarchal masculinity for black men? How does the literature reflect such a delimiting structural force?

            I remember when I first met Jesmyn “Mimi” Ward. We were both undergraduate students at Stanford University; we both did our Work Study under the stewardship of Dr. Ewart Thomas and, then Ph.D. student, Dr. Angela Cole in the university’s psychology department. I never would have thought that over a decade later, I would seriously, in the manner of a scholar, research and investigate and analyze imaginary worlds and people created by little ole Mimi. She is little no more. She has earned her place as a literary giant. Her voice is powerful. Her voice is welcomed. Her voice is queering. And in these days, these times, when so many men are destroying themselves, their families, their spouses and mates – in the furtherance of living up to and adhering to the criteria of middle-class patriarchal masculinity – exposure of the queerness associated with such criteria and exposure of how men may mistakenly choose concepts of masculinity that are indeed harmful, may be exactly what is needed. And for that Mimi, we – men – say: thank you!