Post your summary of the author's introduction to From Totems to Hip-Hop. 250 words is sufficient for most posts, unless instructed otherwise. Make sure you respond to a classmates post before class meets, Sept. 9.
Again, if there are any questions, call or email me. The book is in the Peralta library system; it is also in Bay Area public libraries. Do not get behind on the reading. I will post the reading and essay assignment schedule by Monday-Tuesday and give it to you then as well.
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3 comments:
Mauricio Cavero Alprecht
Professor Wanda Sabir
Enlgish 1b
12 September 2010
Summary of the author's introduction to From Totems to Hip-Hop
From Totems to Hip-Hop is a book edited by Ishmael Reed out of his dissatisfaction and his discomfort with the literature textbooks given to teachers and students for them to follow. Reed researched and put together a collection of poems and lyrics that included not only the “well-known white males,” as he call them, but also authors of all races and colors, including Asian-American, African-American, Spanish-American and native Indians.
This book tries to be the guide for literature for a new world seen with modern eyes, as the old Oakland gargoyles were redone with fiberglass, making them relevant to modern times, he unveils that From Totems to Hip-Hop, keeps the soul of the old times but refines with fiberglass for a better approach in modern literature.
There have been generations of students that have been damaged by the unitradional reading of American literature, students that were not introduced to excellent authors because they were not commercial enough to be put out on the public eye. This book tries to bring all those excellent authors together.
The general reader, the teacher and the students have been kept in the dark about developments that well-known authors don’t write because it is too political or have a drastic way of thinking. These people have been confined to an intellectual cave that William Oandasan called the “Ogre with One Eye.” This “Ogre with One Eye” is the limited vision of America missionary education that is driving blacks and Hispanics from the classroom and that this book is trying to break.
Johna Manibusan
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1B
19 September 2010
Summary to the introduction From Totems to Hip-Hop
From Totem to Hip-Hop, edited by Ishmael Reed, explores Reed’s discontent with the mainstream literary textbooks as the authors typically included in such books are those who, as Reed puts it, “excluded those who were not white or male.” In his introduction, he aims to integrate “Tupac Shakur and Bob Holman, all in this anthology” in order to defy the limits of literary views academia has imposed on readers: Western Civilization view. He feels as if non-white authors are given limted literary freedom and creativity for the sole purpose of confining to the “universal” view, which caters to the Caucasian world view.
Reed emphasizes the importance of diverging from unitraditional reading for it handicaps readers from a multicultural worldview. From Totem to Hip-Hop, aims to include diverse authors that have the ability to genuinely share universal themes and to connect to a wide range of readers. Further, he hopes to deter readers and writers from assimilating into the white culture as this could be detrimental to one’s identity.
Reed also stresses the importance of inclusive literature not only to explore other worldviews but to also inform aspiring writers and readers that literature is universal. Often, students are told that the most beautiful poetry are those of the works of authors with intimidating reputations, but it must be noted that beautiful literature can also be produced by all Americans: Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic-Americans. Literature is rich when it encompasses universal themes. What is better literature than the literary works of universal people?
Ahu Yildirim
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1B
7 September 2010
Summary of the author's introduction to From Totems to Hip-Hop
Ishmael Reed is one of the most original and controversial figures in the field of African American letters. In Reed's view, the black element reveals the permeable nature of American experience and identity, but he also acknowledges the permeable nature of blackness. At the same time, Reed's postmodernism enables him to take in everything at once, so to speak, so that conventional ideas of form and genre are contested, as well as canonical considerations. From Totems to Hip Hop will cover American poetry from its pre-Columbian origins to the hip hop lyricists of today and, with the guidance of Reed’s thoughtful and provocative introduction and head notes, trace the remarkably rich cross-pollination which has continually occurred across racial and cultural lines.
Reed explains that this anthology was the result of an "aborted textbook" project in which African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans were included only "as an afterthought." His response was this rich and representative sampling of the universal literature as produced in America from 1900 to 2002. Reed’s choice of poetries in this book is multicultural and untraditional, he states:
Generations of students have been damaged by the untraditional reading of American literature. Layers of cultural influence surround us in ways most we are not aware. African-American and Hispanic students have been alienated from the settler curriculum because it has no place for their histories and cultures, and gives them the spear-carrying roles. From Totems to Hip-Hop has attempted to show the terrain from which that fertility will continue to arise.
Reed tries to draw a universal worldview by exampling the untraditional and multicultural poetries in this book.
Work Cited Page
Reed, Ishmael. “Earthquake Blues." From Totems to Hip-hop: A Multicultural Anthology of
Poetry across the Americas, 1900-2000. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2003. Print.
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