---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 95
From: Dennis Hickey and Kenneth Wylie
Fairminded and well-reasoned criticism is the lifeblood of scholarship,
and we are perfectly willing to accept it. There is, however, a difference
between a professionally executed review and a drive-by shooting, and this
distinction seems to have been lost in A.D. Roberts' review of our book, An
Enchanting Darkness: The American Vision of Africa in the Twentieth Century.
Roberts maintains, in the most recent number of the *Journal of African
History* that "the book has little claim on the attention of professional
Africanists," and he certainly deserves to be complimented for a firm and
rigorous adherence to his own injunction.
In producing this two-volume study, our strategy was--and is--
to examine a broad range of sources within particular and selected
thematic areas. On one hand, Roberts alleges that "no firm critical
design can be discerned in the selection of subject matter," implying an
approach that is random, or overly inclusive, or both; while on the other
he indicts us for excluding a whole range of subject areas which we never
claimed to address in the first place, setting up a virtual battalion of
straw men. Which is it?
Furthermore, he has no hesitation in charging that "much of the
discussion [in Enchanting Darkness] is rambling, disjointed, and
repetitive." We obviously disagree, and feel this comment stems from the
obviously cursory nature of Roberts's reading, but we leave this matter to
our readership. Roberts questions our data, and while primary materials
will play a much greater role in Volume II (forthcoming, MSU Press), we
invite the reader to examine the type and variety of sources which we have
selected in order to decide whether we "have scarcely engaged in original
research."
He also suggests that "scholarship is patchily treated" after
acknowledging in the first sentence that the book includes a section on
ethnography. While reasonable people can disagree about the selection of
data, we can hardly have been expected to devote a chapter to every
scholarly discipline which impinges on Africa (which was never our
intention). Indeed, anyone who has successfully authored a book should be
well aware that the reviewer's parlor game of selection and inclusion may
be played by the victim. We wish to point out the apparently serendipitous
nature of Roberts's criticisms which raise as many questions as they answer.
For example, Geiss' study of *The Pan African Movement* (1974) is
indeed "magisterial," but what about the more recent scholarship, ranging
from Theodore Draper through Wilson Jeremiah Moses to Elliott Skinner and
Martin Staniland, which we do "mention here?" Is this work irrelevant?
Actually with due respect to Geiss, we are more concerned that we may not
have done full justice to the work of African-American scholars over the
past several decades that we are in omitting a reference to this valuable
earlier work.
Another aspect of this criticism is puzzling: in maintaining that
"more can be learned on black American writers" from Geiss' (1974) work,
he is suggesting--at one level, at least--that nothing much of consequence
has happened in the field of African-American letters over the last twenty
years. He is wrong. If our chapter on this subject does not satisfy his
critical standards, we would nevertheless urge him to explore the "brave
new world" of Post-Geissian literature and criticism, which he is sure to
find revealing.
The list goes on. Roberts notes that "Boas and Herskovits are
briefly characterized." We would like to think that they are put in
context since we did not set out to provide a book-length biographical
treatment of either figure. He complains (in this case, with some justice)
that "Buell gets one short paragraph." In fact we chose to reserve our
extended analysis of Buell for a chapter entitled "White Man's Eden"
(forthcoming in Volume II), since his assessment of the crisis in the
colonies of white settlement is especially relevant to that portion of our
project. (The section on Buell is completed and we will be glad to send a
copy of it to anyone who is interested.)
Much more serious is Roberts's statement that "there is no
appraisal of DuBois' pioneering one volume history of Africa, *Black Folk
Then and Now* (1939)". If Roberts had read our book closely, he might have
encountered a synthetic overview of the work of DuBois and Woodson at the
end of Chapter 7, which takes ancient Egypt as its focal point (which also
condradicts his blanket assertion that "the focus is on texts rather than
authorship and reception"). Furthermore, if he had bothered to consult our
endnotes, Roberts would have discovered that *Black Folks then and Now* is
cited four times. Roberts may not have cared for the manner in which this
work was incorporated and analyzed in our text, but the implication that
it was somehow ignored or overlooked is simply not acceptable.
Most remarkable of all, however, for a "professional Africanist,"
is Roberts's observation that "since 'America' is otherwise taken to
connote the USA, it is unclear why ten pages are devoted to Walter
Rodney". *The American vision of Africa* has been shaped by figures as
diverse as H.M. Stanley, Franz Boas (note Roberts's earlier lament that he
is only "briefly characterized"), Marcus Garvey, and Walter Rodney, none
of whom were born in the USA. Should all of these figures be excluded from
our analysis? Should natal considerations take precedence over the crucial
dynamics of intellectual and cultural influence? As an enhusiast of Geiss
he should go back and take a brief and instructive look at the driving
spirit and circuit of ideas which constitute Pan-Africanism--indeed, he
should take a cursory look at the term itself--and therein he will find a
major portion of the answer to his question.
The Black Diaspora, especially during the past century and a half,
has been characterized by a fertile and continuous intellectual exhange
between Africa, the West Indies, the USA, and Europe, and we do not agree
with Roberts that the "Black Atlantic" should be circumscribed by an
artificial series of ten-mile limits. Clearly African-American
intellectuals were not oblivious to Rodney's timely and ambitious attempt
to reconcile the competing ideologies of Marxism and Pan-Africanism, and
we find it risible that we should even have to defend our decision to
include an extended critique on this subject.
Fortunately, there are other reviews of our book of a more
reasonable and substantive nature (which are not without a critical
component of their own). In this regard, see the reviews by Patrick
Branlinger in the *Journal of American History* (September, 1994); R.T.
Brown in *Choice* (December, 1993); Gary Hoppenstand in the *Journal of
American Culture* (Fall, 1994); Winthrop D. Jordan in the *American
Historical Review* (December, 1994); Thomas J. Noer in *History: Reviews
of New Books* (Spring, 1994); and Jay Spaulding in the *International
Journal of African Historical Studies* (Spring, 1994).
For a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of Volume II write Dennis
Hickey, Department of History, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania,
Hendricks Hall, Edinboro, Pa., 16444 or Kenneth C. Wylie, CICALS, Office
of the Dean, College of Arts and Letters, Linton Hall, Michigan State
University, East Lansing, Mi, 48824.
DENNIS HICKEY AND KENNETH C. WYLIE.