The Newspaper of The Literary Arts BOOKPRESS Volume 1, Number 3 November, 1991 Ithaca, New York COMPLIMENTARY Interview Who’s Afraid of Martin Bernal? Walter Cohen W.C. Black Athena is the center of everything, a persistent racism. Since its publication in 1987, a massive research project you began Egypt’s presence on the continent of Martin Bemal's “Black Athena” has about fifteen years ago. Could you Africa was awkward for northern aroused the long-slumbering field explain its scope and argument? Europeans, who had to be of ancient Greek history to an systematically racist after the M B. The project is on the origins unprecedented pitch of controversy introduction of race-based slavery. of Ancient Greece; it’s both which has made its way from the There were three options: either historiographic and historical. I set customarily staid proceedings of the Egypt was civilized but not part of up two accounts of these origins, American Philological Association Africa (and hence was white), or which I call the Ancient and the to the pages of “Newsweek” Egypt was part of Africa but not Aryan models. We’ve been brought magazine. How is it that a mild- civilized, or best of all, Egypt was up in the Aryan model, according to manner professor o f government at neither black nor civilized. ’ which Greek civilization results from Cornell University, whose specialty conquest from the north by Indo- was East Asia, has emerged as the W.C. So much for the Ancient European speakers, or Aryans. “bete noir” of classical studies? In Model. What comes next? an effort to better understand thk W.C. Is that how everyone’s always M B. During the late 1830’s- underlying issues, we asked Walter been brought up? 1840’s, the Aryan Model is Cohen to interview Bernal: M B. No. According to the Greeks introduced. This has a large of the classical period, their ancestors internalist component: scholars lived in idyllic simplicity until recognize tire existence of the Indo- Egyptians and Phoenicians arrived, European language family, of people INSIDE: built cities, sometimes conquered who once spoke a proto-Indo- the local population, and introduced European language, and, plausibly, Observations on civilization. Volume I is initially of a homeland north of Greece for the Work of concerned with setting up the those people. Ancient Model, showing that the Jenny Holzer W.C. So the Aryan Model required Greek descriptions of their distant the prior erasure of the Egyptians by Alan Singer past fit into this scheme, and seeing but not of the Phoenicians. how it fared from early Christianity An Interview with up to the 19th century. M B. By the 1880’s there was an effort to remove even Phoenicians. W.C. How did it fare? Lamar Herrin The paroxysms of anti-Semitism by Stewart O'Nan M B. Up to 1800 there was little alter 1917, with the identification of questioning of the Ancient Model, the Russian revolution with Jews, On Reading In Bed Its fall, which dates from the 1820’s also affected the historiography of by Robert Hill and 1830’s, was due to external Ancient Greece. So 1 set up two forces - Romanticism, the revival of subcategories. The broad Aryan Photo: Harvey Ferdschneider . _ ,. _ . Christianity, and, underlying continued on page 8 Martin Bernal

Review Bernal’s Response to a New York Times Review Unravelling Separate, Past and Present Mythology: Non-Separatist Feminisms: The Bias of Historians The Challenges of Race and Postcolonial Studies BLACK ATHENA culty in finding experts willing or acceptable to white academia While Biodun Jeyifo The Afroasiatic Roots of able to refute the underlying thesis orthodox Eurocentric histories also Classical Civilization o f the book. ” Possibly stung by this contain education and propaganda, THIRD WORLD WOMEN AND same fate which religions or unjust by Martin Bernal criticism, or else no longer able to they tell familiar and well-loved sto­ THE POLITICS OF FEMINISM legislations have sealed. My re­ Rutgers University Press avoid the issue because of wide­ ries and therefore do not make waves. Edited by Chandra Mohanty, Ann flections determine my attitude to spread discussion of the book in B.P. Baines says that Diop’s work Russo, and Lourdes Torres the problems of life. I analyse the Volume I: The Fabrication of other journals and scholarly con­ Indiana University Press, 388 pp., decisions that decide our future. I Ancient Greece 1785-1985 raises many important issues, but ferences, the “Times” published a that “it will have to be read on faith $14.95 paper widen my scope by taking an inter­ $15.95 paper, 575 pp. review o f Volume II by John Baines, est in current world affairs. I remain alone, because the evidence and Volume II: 'The Archaeological Professor of Egyptology at the persuaded of the inevitable and reasoning used to support the argu­ At the end of her celebrated and Documentary Evidence University of Oxford on August 11. feminist novel, So Long a Letter, necessary complementarity of man ment are often unsound.” $16.95 paper, 736 pp. The review, titled “Was Civilization written near the end of her life, the and woman.” [my emphasisl Made in Africa?", couples Bemal's M B. This appears to concede that Senegalese writer Mariama Ba gives These words are addressed to CIVILIZATION OR book with “Civilization or Barba­ some of the reasoning is sound and, the following affirmations and ide­ her friend, Aissatou, who has left BARBARISM: rism", a work by the Senegalese given that he has raised many im­ alistic, visionary projections to her Senegal to live and work in New An Authentic Anthropology historian, Cheik Anta Diop. We portant issues, it would seem useful narrator-protagonist, Ramatoulaye: York. Aissatou has left Senegal in by Cheik Anta Diop asked Bernal for his response to to investigate those that appear “My heart rejoices each time a voluntary exile because her middle- I^awrence Hill Books, Baines’ review. promising. The two most interest­ woman emerges from the shadows. class husband has taken another wife $16.95 paper, 440 pp. ing issues are on the “race” and I know that the field of our gains is and has abruptly moved from years M B. Before responding to language of ancient Egypt. Diop unstable, the retention of conquests of a seemingly contented monoga­ In the preface to Volume II of “Black Baines’ criticisms of my work, 1 came from Senegal on the edge of difficult: social constraints are ever­ mous marriage to the institutions of Athena”, Martin Bernal faults the should like to consider his treatment “Black Africa,” where there is a present and male egoism resists. polygamy and the extended family “New York Times” for having re­ of Diop. Diop saw his mission as considerable admixture of Berber Instruments for some, baits for oth­ network. This move makes it easier fused to publish a review o f Volume both research and education or and Arab types. Thus, his view of ers, respected or despised, often for him to manipulate the dictates I. He speculates that part of the propaganda. He may put more em­ continued on page 8 muzzled, all women have almost the continued on page 6 reason for this omission was “diffi­ phasis on the latter elements than is P-2 the BOOKPRESS November, 1991 Editorial Not every generation bears witness to the publica­ Off Campus tion of a book which poses a fundamental challenge to an accepted academic discipline. It is possible that Martin Bernal’s Black Athena is such a book. Bernal’s main thesis is that up until the early 19th at the Bookery century, most historians subscribed to the “Ancient The Bookery's second year of the "Off Campus at the Bookery" lecture series Model” of classical history, which traced the origins continued last month with Lamar Herrin reading a chapter from his most recent of Greek civilization to long-term encounters of the work, The Lies Boys Tell (see article, page 5). "Off Campus at the Bookery" indigenous pre-Hellenic peoples with Egyptian and continues to feature lectures and readings on a wide variety of topics, one flight Phoenician settlers. This concept of Ancient Greece up in the office complex Atrium of the DeWitt Mall, on Sundays at 4:00 PM. prevailed at European universities until the 1840’s, when it was supplanted by what Bernal calls the November 3 “Aryan Model.” The latter view, which continues to Diane Ackerman our own day, minimizes the Levantine role in the will read from her new book of nature essays, The Moon by formation of classical Greece, emphasizing instead Whale Light, and sign copies. She is the author of nine books the northern invasions by Indo-European (Aryan) of poetry and prose, the most recent of which include Jaguar people. of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems and the best­ Bernal does not mince words when he character­ selling A Natural History o f the Senses. She has a Ph.D. from izes the 19th-century proponents of the Aryan Model Cornell, is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and writes fre­ as racists and anti-Semites. Further, he holds that quently for The New York Times Book Review, National such racial bias was inherent in the “scientific” world Geographic, and other journals. view of most European scholars, who assumed their methods to be categorically superior to their pred­ November 17 ecessors from other cultures. Most importantly, how­ John Reps ever, Bernal does not claim to disprove the basic will give a lecture and slide show on the National Capitol and tenets of 19th-century historiography merely by will sign copies of his most recent book, Washington on View: questioning their racist assumptions. What is at­ The National Capitol Since 1790. He has taught urban plan­ tempted in Black Athena is a thorough refutation of ning for 43 years at Cornell, received seven fellowships, the Aryan Model on the grounds that, aside from its authored 11 books, including The Making of Urban America: ability to explain the Indo-European formation of the A History o f City Planning in the United States, and lectured Greek language, it does not offer an adequate basis for worldwide. the study of either the origins or the nature of Ancient Greece. December 1 To accomplish his purpose, Bernal necessarily Sander Gilman employs the specialized vocabularies of such fields as will give a lecture entitled "Are Jews White?: The History of linguistics, archaeology, and paleography, much of the Nose Job" and sign copies of his most recent book, The Jew's which may be beyond the competence of the “culti­ Body. The author of many books, including Jewish Self- vated lay public” which he seeks to include among his Hatred', Sexuality: An Illustrated History; and Disease and readers. Also, the academic criticism with which Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS, he Bernal must contend often turns on highly technical is Professor of the History of Psychiatry at Cornell Medical differences of interpretation and methodology. College, and the Goldwyn Smith Professor of Humane Studies Yet, it is already clear that even Bernal’s severest at Cornell University. critics can no longer simply ignore him. Whatever the final scholarly judgement may be, there is no denying that Black Athena is a work that has shaken compla­ .. .for your comments, concerns, and questions, the BOOKPRESS is interested in what you have to say cent notions of Western Civilization by suggesting about the literary arts and our coverage of the literary that its origins were considerably more complex than THIS SPACE arts. We are a forum for writers and readers, and that the epigones of 19th-century classicism would have means you. You've done the reading, now do the us believe. writing! Send correspondence to: Letters to the Editor AVAILABLE the BOOKPRESS, DeWitt Mall 215 N. Cayuga Street, Ithaca, N.Y. 14850

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To the Editor: she learned the “strange letters” of Collegetown Bagels Publisher & Editor: Jack Goldman Elan Framers Because reliance on a “top- the Icelandic alphabet so different Fall Creek Cinema down” view can be misleading, I from both her acquired English and Heart's Content Production & Design: Jay Laird welcome opportunities to meet stu­ her native Chinese. Her exposure to Irving's Deli Arts Editor: Benn T.F. Nadelman dents and learn about their experi­ this new history and literary culture Ithaca Bakery Ludgate Farms Staff: Barbara Mink, Sharon Yntcma ences as Cornell Library users. grew into such enchantment that in Mayer's Smoke Shop Obviously the Library exists to as­ 1988, during Christmas break, she Muffin Madness Contributors: Milly Acharya, Walter Cohen, Sarah sist their research endeavors, but its began a tour of Europe in Iceland. State St. Smoke Shop Elbert, Mary Gilliland, Robert Hill, Gail Host- most important mission is to enrich Now a graduate student in physical Steigers Market Comedians’ intellectual lives. chemistry, Shan Wong frequently The Bakery Warhaft, Biodun Jeyifo, Carol Kammen, A.M. The Commons Market Keehner, Hitch Lyman, Jeanne Mackin, Timothy Sometimes we even reach be­ returns to Olin. As she says, “I still The Frame Shop yond, to broaden cultural horizons, pursue the study of chemistry, but Tops Supermarket Muskat, Judith Pratt, Vicky Romanoff, too. Shan Wong, B.A. ’91, a student there is more. My friendships and Wegmans J. Michael Serino, Alan Singer with eclectic interests and prodigious my fondest memories, which will be talents, entered Cornell in 1987 to with me for as long as 1 live, are Cornell Green I)ragn study chemistry. Naturally her found among the stacks of Olin Li­ The entire contents of THE BOOKPRESS are copyright (c) 1991 by The Johnson Museum Bookery. All rights reserved. Literary events are listed free of charge in the course work took her to the physical brary.” Statler Hotel sciences library in Clark Hall. But Students like Peter Kunin, J.D. Zeus Announcements section. THE BOOKPRESS will not be liable for typo­ necessity brought her to Olin Library: ’91, come to the Library to do de­ graphical error, or errors in publication except the cost to advertisers for up to the cost of the space in which the actual error appeared in the first insertion. she needed a job. Few have turned tective work. To verify the biblio­ Ithaca College Egbert Union necessity to virtue as well as Shan graphical accuracy of all citations in Questions or comments for THE BOOKPRESS should be addressed to THE Friends Hall BOOKPRESS. DeWitt Building. 215 N. Cayuga Street, Ithaca. N.Y. 14850 Wong. For two years she worked in continued on page 4 the Fiske Icelandic Collection, where P-3 The VjsualArl Worker Words in Art; the Art in Words Observations on the work of Jenny Holzer Alan Singer

JENNY HOLZER works for a consumer society, and and billboards to direct the public's By Diane Waldman rather than feed the monster, they attention. The approach borrowed Abrams, $24.95 paper moved away from making traditional something from the typography of objects. newspaper headlines: MONEY JENNY HOLZER Pluralism, the buzzword of the CREATES TASTE, MURDER MOUHIR n HI VtlNIU By Michael Auping r>OKiNl. WNI HI'RM-tC.MVi late seventies and early eighties, IIAS ITS SEXUAL SIDE, ABUSE CONMltl'.ll A. HI ». Universe, $12.95 paper, 128 pp. spoke of a breakdown in the build­ OF POWER COMES AS NO SUR­ WORDS & #s ing of prevailing hierarchies within PRISE. These were the pronounce­ By Barry A. Rosenberg the art world and a reaction to a ments of the artist Jenny Holzer. & Carol Nathanson minimalist aesthetic. This was a The first time I recall seeing these Wright State University/University pause, a transitional phase in Ameri­ words were on colored sheets of Art Galleries, $15.00 paper, 72 pp. can art, that provided access for art­ paper glued to the walls in SOHO, ists engaged on the margins of pub­ not in the gallery but outside on the A BU Sl' O f 1‘OW IR The alphabet o f lic consciousness. Also, there was a street COMtS AS MO SURPRISE. the trees re-assessment of the work of Pop Artists like Andy Warhol and Roy WHAT IS THE PASSWORD is fading in the Lichtenstein, and an era of appro­ song o f the leaves priation began, when artists would Hie radar of 20th-century visual - William Carlos Williams freely borrow for their own work art is constantly sweeping the hori­ images from consumer culture as zon for developments in popular WORD PEOPLE culture that might help define its viability. Each decade is peppered It might not come as a surprise with literary references that come to to you, but up to the early 1980’s, the surface in painter's terms; wit­ IL DES1DERIO some of my acquaintances in the ness the paintings of Charles V-.. Dl RIPRODUZIONE E UN visual arts (painters and sculptors) Demuth, I Saw the Figure 5 in Goldx 'X DESIDERIO Dl MORTE used to refer to art writers and critics Or Stuart Davis's Package Deal or as hype artists, and parasites on the Owh! In San Pao; the surrealist Rene body of Fine Art. The skepticism Magritte’s The Use o f Words, and and distrust from the visual arts came Jasper John's alphabets. We have about because of the perception that the benefit of seeing this process at money and status could be bestowed work with the art of Jenny Holzer. upon those favored by a few good However, her literary references are reviews and critical essays in the Jenny Holzer in response to injustices reported in (photo: Michaela Ze idler) right places. Compounding this was our newspapers and on television v ^ r - the feeling running through the visual well as from established masters (see news shows and are therefore overtly arts, that your work would only be the work of Shone Levine and David political by nature. Jenny Holzer written up if it fit the predetermined Salle) from Mondrian to Picasso. and her colleagues, Barbara Kruger tastes and current theories of a hand­ You may remember the con­ and Ed Ruscha, are featured along ful of influential critics. The visual ceptual artists - a perennial group of with many others in WORDS and #s, artists who were not so favored felt outsiders to this materialist society which is both a book and an exhibi­ these writers and critics were mere who have blithely hung their exhibi­ tion gathered by Barry Rosenberg for the Museum of Contemporary “word people,” usually in the serv­ tions of captions to movies no one ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL ice of selling art for the galleries, or has ever seen - they waited in the Art at Wright State University in magazines and newspapers for their comer for their moment in the spot­ Dayton, Ohio. This would be a good Photo: Foto Menini <6 Gregolin employers in the print media. Obvi­ light. Along the way something place to look over the length and ously, in the critical appraisal of dramatic happened: against the breadth of what has become a cur­ an anonymous proclamation. Few Also, her work is an extension of visual art, something gets lost along background of a financial feeding rent trend in visual art. might know that they have briefly similar art forms already in our cul­ the way, especially if the apparatus frenzy, brought to us by Ronald Regarding the work of Jenny visited with an artist who was cho­ ture, and in fact it is a literary genre is hampered by economic self-inter­ Reagan and his economic policies, a Holzer, we can see installations in sen to represent contemporary presented in a gallery or museum as est. A possible strategy then would few brave souls - advocates of femi­ Buffalo and Rochester and experi­ American art in the recently mounted well as other site-specific locations be to incorporate materials which nism and dialectic discourse - de­ ence the art first-hand. One could 44th Venice Biennale, perhaps the - and we can say that it is closely would need no translation or the cided that they would shoot off a few assume that the variety and manner world’s premier international art related in its composition to poetry. intervention of the middleman to well-chosen words into the eye of in which her chosen words are pre­ event I am sure that, one time or an­ reach the audience. Some artists, the mainstream middle class. The sented wouldn't change their mean­ The exhibit at the Albright- other, you have stopped to walk some painters came to re-evaluate means that were chosen belong to ing, but that would be very short­ Knox Gallery attempts to reconstruct around a cemetery. Drawn by curi­ their position towards producing art the political pamphleteer: handbills sighted. Reading text in a book is of this installation for those of us who osity, you may have stopped to read course very different from seeing were not able to get to the United the proverbs or the epitaph chiseled the moving type of the LED display States Pavilion in Venice, Italy, dur­ in stone. In some of her installations, units lined up on a wall in colorful ing the summer of 1990. As I have Jenny Holzer has arranged marble rows, like the stripes on the chest of already mentioned, Jenny Holzer is and granite benches, similar to the a commissioned officer. This is the not alone in using words in her art, ones one might find at a cemetery or one aspect of Ms. Holzer’s work but she certainly brings a sense of a government memorial, and on the that disturbs me - it suggests to me or purpose and outrage to her presenta­ seat of these benches she has in­ compels me to pay attention to the tions. She employs methods found scribed some of her prose poems. signs set up in the galleries like an in news reports, and in so doing There are even inscriptions chiseled authoritarian barking orders to the makes us question those methods, into the marble floor panels, and troops in control. Lucky for me, the sound bite, the news summary, these stories are hard to resist read­ though, Jenny Holzer is canny the headline - we don’t even get a ing. Holzer’s epigrams have been enough to realize this; her messages chance to read the whole story; we drawn from her ongoing experience force us to ponder her rhetoric and just glance at the large letters, or with language and forms of meaning, we carry on our own inner dialogue hear the babble of the late night and you are likely to read from her with the artist These are the quiet newscaster. series of Truisms (early 1980’s), as ways in which her thoughts insinu­ The danger with this art, how­ well as her Laments (1988-89) and ate themselves within the chapters ever, is that by using the same means her Inflammatory Essays (early of contemporary culture: concep­ as we would find in outdoor adver­ 1980’s). Other recent works include tual art is vindicated. tising, we can tend to overlook the her Living Series (early 1980’s), message entirely, by grouping it with Survival Series (mid 1980’s), the READ ALL ABOUT IT all other similar signs that we see essays that make up the exhibition everyday, so in some sense it is Under A Rock( 1986), and her Child Larger audiences are first con­ ineffective because it is ignored. Text (1990). Many of these texts try fronted by Jenny Holzer’s art in the Some students that I overheard while to help us regain a moral center Albright-Knox Gallery, or in uni­ visiting one of the shows of Ms. without being preachy, and to some versity exhibitions like the one in Holzer’s work were saying, “What they may appear to irritate as another the Bevier Gallery of Rochester In­ qualifies this as being a work of form of verbal propaganda. In any stitute of Technology. Aside from ait?” case, wherever you find them, the these decidedly fine-arts contexts, My answer to them would be words of Jenny Holzer will change audiences may have been exposed that, first, it is the deliberate nature the way you think about things, and to her work at the ball park, at the of the project (she wasn’t sitting that’s no small trick. baggage pick-up in the airport and down to write copy for an advertise­ Alan Singer is an artist and writer re­ above the crowds on 42nd Street in ment) that sets it apart from other siding in Rochester, N. Y. Manhattan, but because the work is forms of commercial speech, so in­ unsigned, the words may pass by as tent has a bearing on this question. P 4 the BCX)KPRESS November, 1991 On Reading in Bed Robert Hill As easy, my mother is wont to with that vulgar importunately upon matter of following instincts, sensi­ say, as falling off a log; meaning, I thoracic or abdominal cavities (de­ bilities, and experience. One learns, gather, that there are no discernible pending upon eyesight and type size), with a modicum of attention, to judge rules governing the practice, no or in general requires to be read on the span of another’s concentration; particular circumstances to be ful­ lectern or table to preserve its own or over how many pages or paragraphs filled beyond a genera its reader’s spine. it typically sustains itself, when it unintentionality, and no benefits to Optimal size is admittedly a begins to lag, and so forth. On the be derived from the practice itself. necessary condition of selection other hand, there is calculation re­ Like missing a bus, running out of without being a sufficient one: trade quired in assessing the intrinsic gas, or burning the toast. Or reading paperbacks meet the size require­ merits or immediate pertinacity of a in bed. ments, but the aesthetics of reading passage you may have just read, Here, however, I demur. Read­ those alliteratively titled fever something that cannot wait but begs ing in bed shares none of these dreams beg a concomitant activity to be shared. Evidently a fine hand characteristics with falling off a log: involving standing, walking, eating, must come into play here, since it is possessed of rules, proprieties, watching television, or waiting for continual interruptions merely con­ etiquette, and a clear set of practi­ something else to happen (nails to stitute reading a book aloud to calities; it bestows benefits upon dry, lambrusco to chill). someone who may not be agreeable those disciplined enough to reap Beyond these rudimentary pre­ to the arrangement. These may be them from the percale (or flannel) scriptions one can only pronounce termed practicalities and conven­ fields of tranquility. further equally rudimentary ones tions. Consider what has always ap­ before idiosyncrasies, personal Recumbency is attended with a peared, to the philistine practicality tastes, or whimsy have their way. heightened receptivity; as one’s of American sensibilities at least, a Rules about not choosingsomething musculature melts into the bedding, dissolute and unprincipled pastime. reading in bed is, rather than the concert with a mate (solitary readers so boring as to be morphinic or so as the absorptive powers are height­ If its practicality is not obvious, 1 escape of the unprincipled or the may extrapolate to particular situa­ to drive you perforce to the television ened. This is not merely the result of need only point for example to the overwhelmed, an occupation at once tions). One does not, for example, remote come to mind here; though lying prone in bed but is as well the late Baron Phillippe Rothschild of healthful, sane, civilizing, social, read a newspaper while supine. It in the myriad turnings of the human propadcutic to fruitful reading. It is Lafite and Mouton fame, who, it is invigorating without being strenuous opens out across both sides of the soul it is impossible to predict whose not like, say, lying down on the reported, conducted an empire - one of those occupations eminently bed; holding it out before one re­ animal spirits may not be set awash living room sofa of an afternoon to propped upon pillows beneath a suited to humankind, one that can be quires a muscular tension through by volumes of mathematical topog­ doze off for an hour with a “good” canopy. He was not reading while practiced hourly and daily without neck, arms, shoulders, and torso that raphy or poetry from prison. For my book, but rather profitable, enlight­ conducting, of course; but 1 have no impairment, and one moreover for entirely obviates the benefits of ly­ own part, I steer clear of books with ening, and civilizing at once, the doubt that he read while not con­ which we were evidently brought ing down; it sustains its own audible titles like Mr. Natural Redux: The posture of active engagement. ducting. into being. It is a quintessentially disturbance (a consideration of eti­ Deconstruction of Zap Comics, Moreover, it is timely to remember I do not intend on these poor human enterprise, one imparting quette also applicable to the question preferring the well-turned essay; in here a quote attributed to Auden: skids to launch any waterlogged greater benefits than exercise ma­ of carrying comestibles to bed); and that receptive posture I prefer what “Thank God for books as an alterna­ phiilipic decrying the stressful and chinery, electoral offices, faddish being a piece of journalism, it further is least postured, most elegant, and tive to conversation.” For what we needless hectoring, the blind and medical solutions, meditative yoga, disturbs the general repose of spirit readily received. Merely my predi­ gain is not merely repose in solitude, heedless pace, of modem life; of the or letters to the editor. by reporting things that are any lection. but an enlivening form of idleness, a consequent need for a counterbal­ In the first place, there are combination of perturbing, inane, There is often, en couchant in a moderation of the intellect, and a ancing respite in decumbent solitude. practicalities to be observed and pointless, questionably substanti­ book beside one’s .other self, a focus on what is vital rather than on It would jusdy not be read, in bed or proprieties to be met, particularly in ated, question-begging, and crudely question of etiquette; namely, when what is speciously demanding. out On the contrary, the ait of leading those instances to which I shall speak written. One should never circum­ is reading a passage aloud permis­ in itself requires no defense and where one’s reading is done in vent these mechanical difficulties sible or not? This is not so much a Robert Hill is a writer who resides in matter of following rules as it is a Ithaca, N.Y. Non-Separatist Feminisms Letter continued from page 2 continued from page 1 us to appreciate the peculiar strengths tions of transnational capitalism, we For Roberta Moudry, B.A. ’81, and sanctions of religion and cus­ of Third World Women and the find these Aissatous defining and every article submitted to the Cornell M.A. ’90, the Library has figured toms and the realities and practices Politics of Feminism (hereinafter exploring their third world Law Review, the student editorial prominently at every stage in her of everyday life which decree a Third World Women), though the feminisms in ways that take in both staff painstakingly sifts through association with Cornell, as an un­ second-class status for women. analogies must not be over-stretched worlds - the countries of advanced, hundreds of sources. Not all the dergraduate, library employee, Aissatou’s rejection of this betrayal since the latter book is a work of postindustrial capitalism, and the clues are in the Law Library; the trail graduate student, and instructor. and the reversion of an “emanci­ collaborative theoretical and schol­ developing nations of Latin America, often leads to Uris, Olin, and Mann, Like many Comellians, Roberta got pated” man to the seductions and arly projects and embodies not the the Carribean, Asia, Africa, and as well as further afield to the library the library habit early. She particu­ privileges of patriarchal integrated vision of one writer but Australasia. For the fictional at the Cornell Medical School in larly values her participation in the neocolonialism is total. Her volun­ the perspectives of women examin­ Aissatou, tolerated but muted in So New York City. Here, too, the online freshman writing program at Uris tary exile thus merely territorializes ing widely divergent areas, contexts Long a Letter we have the power­ computer catalog facilitates the Law Library and the research seminars an internal exile of isolation and and experiences of third world fully invoked or present voices of Review’s work. Knowing the pre­ conducted by Olin reference librar­ marginality as a single woman and feminisms. Thus both books pow­ third world feminist women like cise location and circulation status ians. Because the librarians always parent, courageously but precari­ erfully underscore the view that there Audre Lorde, Nawal el Saadawi, of each work prevents wasted trips aim to convey the strategy of effec­ ously determined to go it alone, never was, there never could be a Angela Davis, Gloria Anzaldua, to the wrong library. Thus, Cornell tive research, as well as to facilitate without and against men. But our “noncontradictory, pure feminism.” Cherie Moraga, Alice Walker, Library helps to minimize the “pa­ accessibility of data, students come narrator-protagonist, Ramatoulaye, Both books also solidly set feminism Maxine Hong Kingston, bell hooks, per chase” of the Review editors. to appreciate that their productivity has embraced the different path of in a global, internationalist and cross- Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Rey No portion of the Library is increases proportionally when their working for minimalist reforms set cultural frame as the only proper Chow, Jacqui Alexander, Evelyne closed to students. Indeed, in the time is devoted to assimilating in­ in cumulatively maximalist, utopian approach to both exploring the Accad, Barbara Smith, Nayereh Department of Rare Books, Manu­ formation rather than retrieving it. ends; she has neither totally accepted, “common differences” within Tohidi and Angela Gilliam. The scripts and Archives, and the Special Currently a doctoral candidate in the nor totally rejected. Significantly, feminism and moving beyond powerful voices and perspectives of Collections, students like Tami history of architecture and urbanism, each character abides by her choice merely affirming connections and “first world” feminists are also Wardle, B.A. ’91, participate in re­ Roberta calls the library her “life­ and at the same time sustains their solidarities across these “common supplementarily invoked or present search projects where bibliographic line.” She relies upon online serv­ friendship, their ideological sister­ differences” to examining them in too, like the late Eleanor Leacock, progress in cataloging matches ices such as the RLIN database to hood in feminism. They also sustain depth. Here the analogies end, and Adrienne Rich, Teresa de Laurentis, scholarly advances. Often the link to outside research at other in­ a mutually inquisitive interest in their in a way that is particularly useful in Dorothy Smith and Ann Russo. Ibis physical artifact itself, whether a stitutions. For graduate students who divergent, even discrepant choices engaging the considerable achieve­ is a very rich exploration of feminism gilt-edged 1623 first folio of have not yet otherwise started to and perspectives. In the letters and ments and strengths, as well as the as it is engaged by third world women Shakespeare, an original pamphlet network with colleagues, this facil­ diaries which form the narrative limitations of Third Word Women. In and as feminism itself engages the from the French Revolution, (as in ity is very important. Roberta suc­ bricolage of this novel, we encoun­ So Long a Letter, it is the particular third world. The richness is, by the Tami’s experience), or the many cinctly expresses our privilege and ter the separate outlooks, locations brand of Ramatoulaye’s feminism, way, specified not only in the range, poignant photos of American in­ our responsibility as educators: “You and contexts of the third world located in the geographical third breadth and sophistication of the volvement in Vietnam awakens could lock all the classrooms, and feminisms of Ramatoulaye and world, which predominates and it book’s theoretical and analytical one’s intellectual curiosity. That the University would still function, Aissatou, the latter from her volun­ barely leaves any space for Aissatou, frames of reference, but also in fiery excitement of insight and dis­ but if you locked the library doors, tary immigrant “exile” in the “first from her location in the the geo­ useful, perhaps invaluable bibliog­ covery is never forgotten, even if students and faculty may as well just world.” Moreover, both graphical “first world,” to advance raphies which accompany many of one does not pursue an academic go home.” Ramatoulaye and Aissatou recognise and explore her views and perspec­ the book’s fourteen essays and career. Tami explains her realization We mast keep the Library doors only too well their class distance tives. By contrast, in can properly Chandra Mohanty’s long introduc­ that “what really made the French open. Some very interesting people- from the realities and struggles of be said that in Third World Women tory essay. Revolution extraordinary was the walk through them. the great majority of the womenfolk we now find a surrogate Aissatou, This introductory essay is a fact that ordinary people were in­ of their country and the world whose many surrogate Aissatous, from a model of theoretical depth aligned volved. Any of us... could have Cordially, causes their feminisms embrace. historic imbrication of the third world with, and sharpened by, lucid, careful written a pamphlet. These real Alain Seznec, There are several ways in which in the “first world” through experi­ expression - no theory as hermetic, people were able to propose practi­ University Librarian this profile of the fictional explora­ ences, legacies and effects of slav­ willfully confounding and con­ cal changes.” I am confident that tion of third world feminisms in ery, waves of imported indentured founded discourse here. The burden when Tami completes law school, * Mariama Bo’s So Long a Letter helps and migrant labor, and the opera­ continued on page 7 she will write more than a pamphlet. p.5 The Radiance of Darkness An Interview with Lamar Herrin Stewart O’Nan 5 .0 . There’s a story behind the much radiance I’ve achieved, but some sort of grand - either literal or soul from that era? sense of) the spectrum of life that did publication of your new book. The that's what I’d like to do, exactly. psychological - conflagration. The not include a meaningful death was L.H. He sees himself in that way. Lies Boys Tell. Civil War is obviously a grand con­ just not doing the job, just wasn’t a S.O. The new book is much He’s someone who, at the age of 39, flagration. In American Baroque, it full presentation of life. I don’t see darker, yet it's a story of recovery, of is coming back and is just worn out L.H. My agent retired, and the would be a case of the 60’s over­ any way to evaluate life without a return from limbo, which seems to and is finally ready to come back present agent that I have at William powering a more cautious, watchful weighing it against death. This isn’t be one of your themes. I’m thinking and make peace precisely when his Morris had trouble placing it because person who is simply drawn into all an original perception, obviously. I father wants him to behave like a editors thought it was too dark. He of your first book, The Rio Loja that, who can't resist it yet can’t give can’t imagine from here on out Ringmaster- a man coming back wild man. That was the pivotal hadn't given up trying to place it, in himself to it either, but is drawn up writing a novel that does not have irony of the book, I thought. In that fact he was still moving it around, from nowhere. It seems that Larry close to it, and that kind of thing somewhere near its center a terribly sense it’s a 60’s book. but while he was doing that I simply in The Lies Boys Tell is doing that as happens all the time. I don't know influential death. entered it in the Associated Writing well. how that would work in the latest S.O. In The Rio Loja Ringmaster, Programs Award for the Novel in 5 .0 . It seems to be the center in book. 1 tell my students that some­ you also have a death scene that 1990, mainly because 1 saw that your last three books, and even in times, they’ve got to bring their plays a key part in the book. I have Norton was going to publish the your first book there is a very sig­ fiction a bit closer to some kind of a death scene in my novel, and I was winning entry. And it won. nificant death, and that may lay you dangerous, disruptive force if they’re telling a student that I saw it as a open to charges of being - pardon me going to get any mileage out of it. great pitfall, where I could really 5.0. You also have the paper­ for saying it - one more Southern That doesn’t mean that it has to be lose the reader. You seem to see it as back version of The Unwritten Gothic writer who focuses on the melodramatic or apocalyptic. They a great opportunity, and you make it Chronicles o f Robert E. Lee out right dark side of death and does his best have to take some risks that bring the - at least in your last two books - pay now. work in very high-pitched scenes, or writing closer to the forces of the off. If you can say that about death. very high style writing. L.H. That's St. Martin's. A week unconscious, while still retaining a They’re the high points of the nov­ ago a friend of mine sent me a certain artful orderliness that you els, the death of Stonewall Jackson L.H. That may be true. These magazine called Photo Design. can’t do without. and the death, in this bode, of Ed, the things are difficult to talk about, the Apparently every year they give two father. effects of fiction or the motive forces awards for commercial book design, Lamar Herrin 5.0. Political issues keep pop­ for fiction, but degrees of intensity and the paperback of The Unwritten ping up in your books, although I L.H. What happened to me, per­ interest me very much in fiction, and Chronicles won for the best cover. L.H. This is my fourth novel, I’m don’t think most people see you as a sonally, which may have a bearing unintense writing does not interest It’s a hand-tinted Matthew Brady working on my fifth now (actually political writer. on the last book especially... When me at all. photograph of Lee. my father died, about nine years my sixth, there’s one in the file L.H. What I like is individual cabinet). I'm aware when I’m ago... It was never like Larry and Ed 5.0. You’re not one of the cool 5 .0 . Also a dark book. dramas tensing off of historical in The Lies Boys Tell, it wasn’t an understated. writing these books of recurring moments, people influenced or L.H. Dark books can be dark embattled relationship, I saw him all patterns and motifs and ideas, but threatened by historical forces. Pe­ L.H. No, I’m not, and I think I without being depressing. They can what you just said, somehow that the time. We had a lot of differences ripheral people, but still threatened finally go to fiction to get the life of opinion in the 60’s, obviously. be exciting, exhilarating, and still be these bodes being books of recovery, by those historical forces. Lee and that I frequently miss around me. He was the first person who was very dark. This is the kind of lit­ I never put it to myself in those Jackson certainly aren’t peripheral There’s so much of our contempo­ very close to me who had died, and erature that I like. words, but I see that could be true. I in The Unwritten Chronicles, but I rary existence that’s programmed think one of the things that I keep what I realized - whether I realized 5.0. John Cheever said of Fal­ don’t think of it as a typical book of and pre-planned and taken for doing in my novels is, to one degree this consciously and 1 set it out for granted. 1 go to fiction to pick up on coner that he wanted “to write a very mine. 'The last book, The Lies Boys or another, bringing characters fairly myself or it was driven home to me a kind of intensity that I’m missing dark book that possessed radiance.” Tell, is a repercussion of the 60’s. close to some sort of psychological - was that any attempt to recreate continued on page 7 L.H. Exactly. I don't know how disruption, or getting them close to 5.0. Do you see Larry as a lost (and a novelist tries to recreate some Lamar Herrin Talks About The Lies Boys Tell Food For Thought Judith Pratt Books by Lamar Herrin: back to a fictional town named ...and Chumleyville, Alabama, where Ed THE UNWRITTEN was bom, and where he wants to die. CHRONICLES OF When reading from his novel at ROBERT E. LEE an October 13th “Off Campus at the Conversation! St. Martin’s Press, Bookery” presentation, Lamar $9.95 paper, 248 pp Herrin noted the difficulty of doing For Dining or a such a reading from a novel, as op­ Unhurried THE LIES BOYS TELL posed to short stories. “You never Leisurely Drink From Our Norton, $19.95, 256 pp. get the full resonance unless it’s seen in context with the other Vast Selection of There was so much in our lives chapters,” he said. “Significance is we could talk our way out of or up for grabs.” Fine Wines & International Beers reason our way around that when In a later interview, Herrin we came up against something we talked about reading from his work. and Unparalleled Bar List, it's couldn j, we considered it crazy and “You see things when you read absurd. But finally it was only those aloud, and say. How did I let this go crazy, absurd and inescapable things buy? I meant to fix it.” He usually that mattered. doesn’t read his work aloud while The Lies Boys Tell is a story writing, only now and then “to get a about doing a crazy, absurd and in­ head of steam up.” escapable thing. Still, he said, “I think I must Ed Reece, dying of cancer, be­ write in the rhythm of reading aloud. comes obsessed by the idea of re­ Rhythm is what carries me along. I turning to the house of his birth in tell my students to make sure there’s order to die. He’s been a very sen­ more life on the page than in the sible man all his life and he knows world around you.” the rest of his family won’t go along I Ierrin is a professor of creative with the idea. But he has one dis­ writing and contemporary literature affected son, who split with bis (North and South American, mainly) family over Vietnam and fifteen at Cornell University. “I’m a crea­ years later is still a vagabond. As­ tive writer, not a scholar,” he said. suming that if anyone will go along The Lies Boys Tell is his fourth with his absurd idea, Larry will, Ed novel, which he wrote on a National wires him, asking him to come home. Endowment for the Arts grant. His Father and son buy a van and other novels are The Rio Loja take off from Kentucky to retrace Ringmaster,American Baroque,and the midwestem routes Ed used to The Unwritten Chronicles of Robert drive as a traveling salesman. In E. Lee. His short stories have ap­ ITHACA, N.Y. Missouri, they pick up Connie, peared in such magazines as The New Larry's divorced wife, and their 12- Yorker, The Paris Review, and Kitchen Open 7 Days 11 AM -12:30 AM year-old son, Jeff. In Savannah, Harper’s. they pick up the bed that Ed was continued on page 7 All M ajor born in. And they work their way 224 E. State St. 272-2212 Credit Cards the BOOKPRESS November, 1991 Like Freud, Kaplan sees sexual dys­ function as a process that begins in Watching the childhood, if not infancy. It begins as the little girl’s sense of loss for the Reviews penis with which she wasn’t bom, as English Language the little boy’s sense of loss for the mother from whom he must even­ A.M. Keehner tually separate, once again and again ARCADE DICTIONARY OF briskly and one must admire a com­ Dark Comers and again. Sex becomes an act oc­ WORD ORIGINS piler taking on a work of this size curring between two partners, and Jeanne Mackin by John Ayto without the help of Shipley, Onions, then continues as a dark emotion Little, Brown & Co., Partridge, Skeat, Johnson, or even FEMALE PERVERSIONS Bovary a potent example of female connecting mother and son, father $29.95, 580 pp. Webster. The task must have been The Temptations of Madame perversion, with fetishes, neurosis and daughter... the four persons of monumental, though it does fit well Bovary and dark comers inhabiting every Freud’s theory. DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN on one’s desk. Louise J. Kaplan love scene, every emotion of Bovaiy. It’s an interesting theory, but REGIONAL ENGLISH On the other hand, hire a car­ Doubleday, $24.95,568 pp. Fetishes, in Kaplan’s exploration, one that leaves this reader less than edited by Frederick G. Cassidy penter and build a bookcase for the are more than champagne-filled fully convinced. The technique of la m accustoming myself to the idea Belknap Press forthcoming — but well worth the shoes, Daddy’s t-shirt, or the belov­ the book itself leaves something to of regarding every sexual act as a Volume I, $70.00 cloth wait — volumes of the Dictionary of ed’s lingerie. They become the ob­ be desired: actual case histories are process in which four persons are Volume II, $59.95 cloth American Regional English jects that symbolize our darker de­ mixed in with analysis of fictional involved. We shall have a lot to (until 12/31/91, then $70.00) (DARE). The size of the required sires, and the beliefs behind those characters. Madame Bovary does discuss about that. bookcase is still unknown, but it will desires. make for a catchy title, but she is, — S. Freud, Letters Yet another lexicon of inex­ need to be large to house this work “On nearly every page of after all, a piece of fiction, a woman actitude cones our way in the Arcade begun in 1963 by chief editor There is a dark comer in the Madame Bovary there is a fetish of created by a man’s imagination. To Dictionary of Word Origins. To Frederic G. Cassidy. William Safire heart, or the mind, or wherever it is one sort or another: not only the write about Madame Bovary is to quote part of the jacket blurb: “This calls it “the most exciting linguistic that emotion truly occurs (Medi­ false beliefs and deceptive ideologies write about female perversion as a completely new Dictionary of Word project going on in the United evalists placed in in the liver.) In of social progress that were infil­ man imagines it. Origins uncovers the hidden and States.” Who am I to argue? this dark comer, love confuses pain trating the modem world, but a whole The last section of the book often surprising connections be­ From 1963 until roughly 1975, with pleasure, loss with passion and assortment of fetishistic icons from includes an important discussion of tween words. Written in a clear and teams of researchers spread out desire with need. It is the dark everyday life, the banalities that are the commercialization of sex that informative style... the histories of across the country, compiling local comer that Louise Kaplan writes always fetched up into something more than compensates for any more than 8,000 English language speech idioms, regional expressions, about in Female Perversions. other than what they actually are...” earlier doubts of the authenticity of words” (which is about as exacting anything and everything considered Kaplan, a well-known and well- Banality as a source of perver­ this work: “The modem industrial as the text gets) are contained be­ to be part of the non-standard lan­ published psychologist with four sion is only the beginning of this economy that originally derived its tween its covers. guage we call American English. earlier books to her credit, does a lengthy exploration, though, and greatest support from the gender Clarifying an etymology is a One is not only excited by this very thorough job of defining, some of the narrower avenues take conformities of the bourgeois fam­ difficult and equivocal task, at best, project but completely awed by its analyzing and tracing the genesis of us on more twisted journeys. There’s ily is now turning its energies to the and there are few lexicographers magnitude, which consists of two various sexual disorders, ranging the description of frotteurism (the mass marketing of sexual perver­ who agree completely upon the roots and a half million items, coded and horn the mundane to the unthinkable. robbing against and fondling of an sion. The twentieth century is end­ and the paths which a word has computer-processed as its primary There is, for example, the female unwilling woman’s breasts and ing in an ironic conformity of sexual taken to arrive at its present usage. data base (that from field research), of our title, Madame Bovary, a bored, buttocks in crowded situations, such deviation that trivializes the mean­ Mr. Ayto has solved these problems along with gleanings from earlier shallow-minded little French as subway cars), transvestism, ing of erotic freedom.” by simply ignoring everyone else in collections such as the 40,000 ex­ housewife of the previous century shoplifting as a sexual perversion, If perversion is a denial of the the field. In all of the 580 (more or pressions recorded by the American who, in her boredom, decides to obsessive and passive love, and self- true sexual self, as Kaplan suggests, less) pages, I find not one citation of Dialect Society since 1889 and give herself body and soul to an mutilation. Underlying all the dis­ maybe sex theorists will soon be another author’s work on the subject. roughly 5,000 publications which unworthy but passionate lover. “I cussed perversions is a tortured, in­ warning that sex is an act involving In fact there is no citation of a word’s include regional novels, diaries and am in an entirely different world complete sense of self - unable to not two people, nor four, but no first appearance in print with the small- town newspapers. There are now, that of a minute attention to the deal with life and love, or with the people, only pretences. Those are exception of “(17),” say, denoting also computer-generated maps most banal details. I have my gaze body and its sexual organs. Perver­ dark comers, indeed. the 17th century, or, in some in­ which show the geographical dis­ focused on moldy mosses of the sion becomes an attempt to become stances, “OE,” meaning, I suppose, tribution of many of the entries. The soul,” Flaubert penned of his crea­ the other, that which one is not. Jeanne Mackin is the author of two that the author has pinned the word’s 156-page introduction to Volume I tion, Madame Bovary. Which leads us back to Freud’s recent novels, "The Frenchwoman" first appearance down to sometime provides a complete history of the Kaplan finds in Madame promise of having a lot to discuss. (1989) and "Queens War“ (1991) during that period in which Old DARE project. English was the language used in The main drawback may be in certain parts of the world. waiting for the DARE’s comple­ Third World Women and The Politics of Feminism One must assume that what is tion. Volume I, covering the alphabet continued from page 4 sonal and the familial and local, na­ future). This often leads to the charge meant by “a clear and informative from A to C, was published in 1985. of this essay, as I read it, is to attempt tional and global networks of ex­ that Western feminists often, wit­ style” is the absence of etymologi­ Volume II, published in 1991, gets to unravel the confusions, ploitation and domination; and they tingly or unwittingly, obscure their cal arguments. There are no notes through H, and at that rate Z seems simplifications, and dogmas which insist that at these latter levels, class and racial privileges and col­ marginally or postscripturally to a long way off. prevent non-essentialist, complexly women and men face the same op­ lude with systematic national and which one might refer and there is apprehended and articulated under­ pressive, dehumanizing structures, global exploitation of most of the only a slim introduction. A.M. Keehner is a writer who lives in standing of the categories “third although they do experience their world’s peoples and the world’s re­ At the risk of not sounding en­ Venice Center, N.Y. world,” “woman,” “feminism,” oppressions differently. However, sources. Pushing this charge further, tirely negative, the work does read “race,” and sexuality and the ways several writers in Third World radical feminists of color speak of a in which they intersect This is an Women insist that these differences paradoxical reversal of racial pater­ ambitious theoretical project as well pertain only to manifestations, not nalism around issues of sexuality, as an eminently urgent political task the sources of these oppressions - the female body, and the family. In WRITERS & and on balance Chandra Mohanty poverty, hunger, war, inadequate the colonial period, the “white man,” marshalls the arguments, perspec­ health delivery, super-exploited as the sovereign imperial subject, tives and illustrations adequate to labor. sought to liberate “native women” the project. Reducing her theoreti­ These divergent perspectives from “native men” and their “sav­ ARTISTS cal purview somewhat I would and agendas have often led to bitter, age” customs like widow sacrifice identify her underlying construct as acrimonious encounters at interna­ and child marriages. In the If you have something to say in words or the view that peoples, places and tional women’s conferences and postcolonial period, it is now the pictures, the BOOKPRESS may have the place events accede to the status of subjects seminars: Mexico City, 1975; “white woman,” under the banner of for you to say it! (both in the sense of being subjected Wellesley, Massachusetts, 1976; a crusading feminism, who seeks to and being acting subjects) only Copenhagen, 1980; Nairobi, 1985. liberate the third world woman from through abstracted, generalised and Where the confrontation was not the third world man and “backward” We're looking for writers who put style, universalised modes expressed actually assimilated into expressions customs like clitoridectomy and the accuracy, and insight into their work, and through categorical systems, rules, of Cold War rhetoric and maneuvres veiL we're looking for artists who can make a writer’s laws and practices, modes mediated (as in Nairobi), positions which are It is one of the achievements of by texts. But the decisive abstract­ equally portentous have divided the Third World Women that these is­ work mean even more. We are especially ing processes and the mediating texts two composite camps. Western sues and encounters are examined interested in articles which: of the modem world and the global mainstream feminists seem to see soberly and with often penetrating order - cultural modernity - have, for third world nationalism and national insight. Ultimately, argues the long • review another writer's work instance, been differently engaged liberation struggles as being frozen introductory essay, two issues sub­ tend these conflicting, divided com­ • explore the publishing industry by Western feminisms and third around a more or less permanent posite feminisms: expanding the • give an in-depth look at a writer world feminisms respectively. It is sexist stage, and this makes it easy to parameters of feminism; working • offer insight into the craft of writing highly informative to review how relegate “women’s issues” to a sec­ for common agendas, coalitions and • offer information on recent and this particular point is developed in ondary status behind “politics.” alliances beyond the “common dif­ Third World Women. Third world feminists, by contrast, upcoming literary events speak of Western feminists’ “stra­ ferences.” Chandra Mohanty ar­ Mainstream Western feminisms gues in this wide-ranging, thought­ tegic tunnel vision” which involves emphasize gender equality and jus­ ful essay that while these are ques­ .. .plus anything else which may be suitable for a singular focus on gender issues - a tice, especially with regard to male tions of power, they are also ques­ “The Newspaper of the Literary Arts.” domination, sexuality and the con­ reification of gender and sexuality - tions of disciplinary practice for trol of the female body (now fiercely thereby ignoring the intersecting teachers and methodological revi­ joined in the struggle over repro­ claims of race (women and men of sions for researchers (As for ex­ Send samples of your work to the Bookpress, ductive rights). Third world color have to contend with racism) panding the parameters of feminism, Dewitt Building, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca, feminisms, on the other hand, pur­ and class (all poor people in the I find particularly illuminating the sue gender equality but along a whole developing world, women and men, argument that the genealogical roots N.Y. 14850, or call us at (607) 273-5055. spectrum which includes the per- face a desperate present and a bleak continued on page 6 p.7 Margery Fish and “The Cottage Garden” Hitch Lyman Books by Margery Fish: be a good time to discover her par­ could only come from a newspaper ticular voice. woman. I feel the difference be­ CAREFREE GARDENING “I have always felt my family tween the very modem Mrs. Fish Faber & Faber, have been very forbearing towards and the deeply 19th-century Mr. $10.95 paper, 140 pp. me. Before I was married I didn’t do Bowles is that he writes without a anything in the garden. Every COTTAGE GARDEN mask and she has chosen to adopt a FLOWERS weekend, when my sisters were literary voice. It makes her books navvying to make a garden round Faber & Faber, wonderful and she even has a tech­ $10.95 paper, 120 pp. the little house we built, I sailed off nical effect of a comic falling tone on my bicycle to play golf. And 1 which is unique but one is aware of GARDENING IN THE SHADE never stopped saying the most the mask and one wonders. Faber & Faber, scathing things about gardeners, Her lasting value lies in the $10.95 paper, 160 pp. what fools they were always to be enormous range of plants she dis­ working and never enjoying their cusses. Her books, one after an­ GROUND COVER PLANTS gardens, and what was the good of other, are cornucopias of rare, Faber & Faber, having a lovely garden if you never common, odd, useful, good, ugly, $10.95 paper, 144 pp. had time to sit in it and enjoy it?” difficult, impossible, thrilling plants: W E MADE A GARDEN Mrs. Fish was bom in 1893. “1 cannot avoid odd plants in odd Faber & Faber, $8.95 paper, 120 pp. She went to work for the Daily Mail places. It has the same effect on me in London in 1913 and married as kittens have. When they are very Other Books Mentioned Walter Fish, the retired editor of that tiny you can destroy them without paper, in 1933. In 1938, to avoid the in this Article: Illustration: Vicky Romanoff too much heart searching, but if the coming war, they moved to Somer­ seedlings escape me until they are THE COTTAGE GARDEN: set and bought a 15th-century house mon stuff. Yet it was Walter who gift is to anthropomorphize the quite big I realize how lovely they Margery Fish at East Lambrook with an acre of land and began to taught her how to think about gar­ plants. They “grow for her,” as are and leave them.” M anor garden. She wrote first for the dens and gardening, how to do all Bowles would say, and she differen­ Her other books are Cottage Susan Chivers and Suzanne magazine Amateur Gardening. the basic things well; it was Walter tiates among them by attributes like Garden Flowers{1% 1), Gardening Woloszynska Then, after her husband's death, she who “liked breadth and generosity “willingness” and “faithfulness” in the Shade (1964), Ground Cover Trafalgar Square, 24.95, 128 pp. published the first of her eight books, and a feeling of spaciousness in the rather than “petals bifed, reflexed.” Plants (1964), Carefree Gardening MY GARDEN IN SPRING We Made a Garden, in 1956. garden as well as the house.” It seems also that she came to (1966), and (posthumously) Gar­ Edward A. Bowles Vita Sackville-West reviewed Her second book, An All the her particular voice in An All the Year dening on Clay and Lime (1970). I Theophrastus, $12.50 it, saying, “I defy any amateur gar­ Year Garden, discussed the details Garden. It is, again like Bowles, am missing A Flower for Every Day. dener not to find pleasure, encour­ she omitted in the general survey of very good humored and fond of jokes If all are not now in print, they will Although Margery Fish died in agement and profit from this book the first and set the style of her later - more literary than he, yet she makes be. Her books are easy to find used 1969, her books on gardening, in — it is crammed with good advice.” works: long, intelligent loving a great show of being a country in England since she enjoyed a wide England at least, have continued in It is the most cranky of her catalogues of plants, by family, by woman. “The red-leaved bugle stays audience there. print. They are now beginning to books. The running joke throughout time of flower, by site. Her chapter with us all the winter, and for a Her garden, East Lambrook turn up in our bookstores and a new is how hideous her husband had on geraniums is the best since A.J. livelier note there is the tortoise shell Manor in South Pemberton, Som­ biography has come out, The Cot­ been to garden with: always right; Johnson, who in his turn knew the form with metallic markings in red erset, was kept going for about tage Garden: Margery Fish at East addicted to dahlias and immaculate most after E.A. Bowles. Indeed it is and cream.” twenty years after her death and has Lambrook Manor by Susan Chivers rolled gravel paths; fond of decapi­ Bowles, that prince of garden writ­ “Tortoise shell” is the givea­ just recently, I believe, been aban­ and Suzanne Woloszynska, so if you tating rare plants and saying she’d ers, who Fish seems to parallel. Her way: such elegance of adjective doned by her family. have missed her up to now, this may do much better to stick to the com- The Lies Boys Tell Lamar Herrin Interview continued from page 5 continuedfrom page 5 the two fictional ones of the arrival They ask to be dealt with in larger The other “Gothic-minded The Lies Boys Tell won the 1990 and departure, was from that map.” self without actually doing it being letters. The writing has to respond crank” quote is just the self-mocking Associated Writing Programs Award “I always had an ambivalent the essence of the baroque style. to that. tone the narrator of American Ba­ for the Novel. “AWP is an organi­ feeling toward small towns. I love Which is a very exciting style be­ roque uses a lot. He’s saying that S.O. Two quotes, one from the zation to which all the creative them, but you feel very pent up in cause you come as close to self- from suburbia, too, the updated Robert E. Lee book, the second from writing programs in American uni­ them. The book is an attempt to destruction as you can come in the equivalent of what Jackson dreamed versities belong,” explained Herrin. achieve reconciliation on a number act of writing, in the act of making American Baroque. “Death has been his profession, his metidr....” and of. “Every year they run a contest for of fronts; to come to terms with art. towns like that, and with people like “Before I’m dismissed as some 5.0. He’s in a place of calm and best novel. There were over 300 5 .0 . It’s a very full book Gothic-minded crank...” Do you he’s writing about turbulence. entries.” Herrin has also won a Paris Ed Reece’s friends, who hid out on want to rebut these, your self-accu­ Review of Fiction prize. the golf course during Vietnam.” L.H. I’m not entirely satisfied sations? L.H. He’s in a university town, In The Lies Boys Tell, Herrin Reconciliation is important to with it. Other people liked it, but just as Jackson wanted to return to tells the stay in a simple, matter-of- this novel. Near the end of the story, I’ve gotten away from that style of L.H. The first one is Jackson, and Lexington, and as Lee does at the fact tone that makes the quixotic trip Connie tells Larry, “We’re going to writing. I’m trying to get into the skin of end of that novel, he returns his­ seem necessary and inevitable. The have to learn to share ourselves more. Jackson at that point. What’s fas­ torically to Lexington, Virginia. 5 .0 . The voice in the Robert E. momentum of the journey carries I don’t know how.” cinating about Jackson, as a historical the reader along, and the meditations “That’s probably the line that’s Lee book seems unlike anything else 5.0. That leads back to the figure and also through his letters, and visions of the dying man seem a closest to the surface of the book,” you’ve done, when you’re dealing question of some of the tumultu­ he was the biggest sentimentalist logical part of the trip across the said Herrin. While there are no easy with Jackson - and even when you’re ousness of some of the situations in and the most domestic-minded man “sunny vastness” of Indiana, Illinois, answers to the tensions between dealing with Lee. your fiction, what could possibly be you could imagine. All he wanted to and Iowa, and back into the jungle Larry and Connie, or Larry and his called Gothic situations. L.H. When you’re dealing with do was settle down in Lexington, heat of Missouri and Georgia. brother, some kind of reconciliation historical figures, it seems para­ Virginia and be a half-laughed-at L.H. I’ve never quite understood Herrin has lived in many of the feels possible at the end of the novel. doxical, but there’s a kind of license professor at the Virginia Military what the word “Gothic” means. I places he wrote about in The Lies The opening of Chapter IX, you get, because the actual work of Institute. I’ve seen his house in understand it in its thrown-around Boys Tell. “I was bom in Atlanta, which Herrin read in its entirety at creating a character has been done Lexington, it’s a pretty house with terms, but what are we talking about? Georgia, but never lived there as the Bookery talk, in some sense for you. You’re standing on bedrock, his garden out back. He dreamed of Charles Brockden Brown is our fa­ anything other than an unconscious captures the effect of the novel upon you don’t have to worry about that. this, he wrote to his wife about it in mous Gothic writer. Charles child. My parents were both bom in the reader. You sense, every morning you sit the most florid language, really in­ Brockden Brown wrote a great novel the same little town in Georgia. I You can aim for something all down to the typewriter, the reality of credible language. I try to make out called Arthur Merwyn that is really a never lived there, but I feel rooted in your life, year after year set your that character, absolutely inescap­ equivalents for it in the letters. When wonderful study in style. It’s a that little town.” As a boy and young sights there, but in the instant you able. So what you can do is write off I have him say that or think that, it’s nightmarish account of a Benjamin man, Herrin lived in Kentucky achieve it it’s as though your atten­ of that, I mean, you can really write. because he can't escape this thing Franklin-like, a Gatsby-likc char­ (where the novel begins), and Illi­ tion had wandered or your faith had It’s a strange sensation. These are that somehow, in spite of all his acter in a plague year in Philadelphia. nois. lapsed and you’d come to your the only historical figures I’ve ever dreaming and all his desire to return The style, the writing, is flat; the “One of the difficulties in destination unawares. That was how written about. You really can air it to this life, he's not in the middle of writing is controlled. This is your writing the book was that I wrote it they entered Chumleyville. out, because these arc characters who death somehow, he's not who he is, great Gothic writer. If it means that on a sabbatic in Spain,” admitted The reader enters Chumleyville, are somewhat larger than life, who and yet that’s precisely who he someone is tapping into the forces of Herrin. “I had a Rand McNally map. the place of death, without quite do have this historical significance. doesn’t want to be. continued on page 9 Every town in the book, except for continued on page 9

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And Greece changed the basic language about a thousand years. the Northern influences on Greece. there into an Indo-European one before the 1800’s-1700’s B.C. W.C. What about the post-war M B . Yes, it will be based partly on articles I’ve written on the origins of period before the 1980’s? W.C. What of Crete? the polis and notions of freedom. I MB. In the 1950’s, some secular M B . By around 2000 B.C. it had a put the Greek idea of freedom in its Jewish scholars argued, “One must mixed culture, but the basic religion Near Eastern context and, think in terms of common was Egyptian and the basic language developing the conventional belief Mediterranean cultures in the second Semitic. In the late 18th century that freedom as an important value millenium B.C.” I like to believe B.C., there’s an irruption in comes in with slave society, argue that the Holocaust shocked southwest Asia of the Hyksos - that slave society and freedom both classicists. But I think the essentially a Semitic movement into originate in Phoenicia rather than establishment of Israel as a bastion Egypt. These barbarians then took Greece. of the Western word, the resulting to die sea. I believe the Hyksos, now W.C. How long do you expect the incorporation of Jewish culture in Semitic in speech and Egyptian in rest of Black Athena to take? the Judeo-Christian tradition, and high culture, conquered or set up all this assimilation had a greater hegemony over Crete. This MB. I think Volumes III and IV effect. There is no longer any extraordinary, eclectic material will take eight to ten years. Then ideological objection to Semites. culture was pushed on to mainland I’m not sure. There’s a temptation Thus we are returning to the broad Greece, where a cosmopolitan, to “march on Rome” to look at Aryan Model. But I advocate what stratified world arose. Semitic influences on the formation ) I call the revised Ancient Model, of the city. Many key place names - W.C. The Hyksos culture when it which is my absorption of a few like Rome itself or Tiber - have elements, notably the Indo-European reaches Greece is what we call Illustration: Benn Nadelman Mycenaean culture? plausible Semitic origins and very nature of the Greek language, in the implausible Indo-European ones. potential for the extreme right-wing W.C. But if there were no Volume Ancient Model. MB. That's right. I think it And the Phoenicians were trading intellectual movement that didn’t II with a detailed alternative model, W.C. What about the subsequent survived in Greece for 500 years. down the west coast of Italy in the actually take form until the 1980’s. you’d leave open that typically seventh century and almost certainly The European provincialism in American response: “We used to volumes of Black Athena! W.C. Is the main borrowing of in the eighth. Telluride was a provocation that set have it wrong; now we’ve got it Egypt and Semitic words into Greek MB. They develop the revised me going, because I had looked right. Those people were racist; from this period, or is that just the W.C. Back to Greece: you’ve talked Ancient Model. I have treated forward to finding in America an we re not.” beginning? about the racism of the Aryan Model. archaeology in Volume II. That openness to East Asia, which was What’s at stake in the argument - MB. The fact that classics was leaves language for Volume HI and MB. The main period was the my area. considering that the second conceived in racism and anti- mythology for Volume IV. seventeenth century B.C. millenium is a specialized area? W.C. Has your sense of the project Semitism doesn’t falsify the Aryan W.C. Would you summarize the W.C. Here you’re describing changed over the past fifteen years? model. But right-wing crusaders M B . In Volume I, I didn't bring revised Ancient Model? material from Volume HI of Black assert there was once objective out the influence of Allan Bloom on MB. Well, Afrocentrists have Athena, which is in the works. scholarship, which politically correct MB. The revised Ancient Model appropriated the name Black Athena. my work. Coming into Telluride, a people have polluted by adding says, yes, Greek is an Indo-European M B . It’s in the works though some scholarship house at Cornell, where In some ways I’m very pleased to politics to it. It’s an absurd claim, language, and all Indo-European time off, because I’m trying to write his influence was still felt strongly, provide ammunition for them, and but it’s getting wide coverage. languages derive from a language or a popular version, a straightforward I’m delighted that Volume I has made me realize the reactionary Volume I demonstrates - and they’re cluster of dialects in the fourth and textbook with little historiography been a thorn in the flesh of the crusade potential of the Romantic not really denying this - the early third millennia, spoken in what that freshmen and sophomores can interpretation of Greece. Though against “political correctness ” overwhelming influence of is now the Ukraine. That spreads by understand. It will go from the this was the mid-70’s, I saw a continued on page 11 Bernal Responds to the Times Review continuedfrom page 1 types. Semitic influences on the formation China as Greece is from Egypt and and that it has borrowed massively of Ancient Greece, which was the 'across a much wider sea. If one from the Near East in many different what counts as black is more like the B.P. It’s interesting that in his worked to understand Heian or periods. However, in this case, un­ vast range of physical types found review Baines seems to turn the ta­ greatest single source of European civilization. Therefore, his criticism Tokugawa Japan it would be nec­ like that of Japan, the borrowings among Afro-Americans than the bles on you and Diop when he calls that I do not consider other African more restricted view of other West you Eurocentric, in that “neither essary to look at their social and have until recently been denied. civilizations is blaming me for fail­ economic structures as well as their or Central Africans. I think it was work attempts to show that the val­ B.P. But doesn’t Baines concede ing to write a different book. culture. However, my concern this that led him to state - legitimately ues or achievements of African so­ your point when he says that the would be to analyze the Chinese - that the ancient Egyptians were B.P. Baines charges that both you influence of ancient Middle Eastern borrowings in these societies. This black in the broader sense, that they and Diop “reject the idea of the civilizations on Europe is “un- is intrinsically interesting, but it is would not be admitted to many separate evolution of civilization, controversial?” also important because such analy­ country clubs today. Unfortunately, returning to the much criticized sis can help show cultural and lin­ however, Diop pushed it further, theory of diffusionism.” Do you MB. Yes, but he does not en­ and in some of his works he claimed guistic connections that, while not courage examination or analysis of believe that different civilizations superficially apparent, may exist in that the ancient Egyptians were have arisen independently, or that such influences. Especially in the Japan. Most of all, knowledge of a predominantly black and Negroid in all are inter-related? last thirty years, the atmosphere of the narrower sense. Chinese phenomenon and the adap­ intense hostility to diffusionism has M B . I advocate the “modified caused historians to try to understand B.P. Baines makes the point that diffusion” put forward by the early Ancient Greece with as little refer­ neither you nor Diop have “come to 20th-century archaeological pio­ ence to the Near East as possible. terms with the Egyptians’ notion of neers, Oscar Montelius and Gordon people’s color.” He notes that an­ Childe. We know from the histori­ B.P. What is gained by the ap­ cient Egyptian paintings portray men cal record that social, economic, and proach you take? as reddish-brown and women as cultural changes are the result of M B . As well as being intrinsically yellow. both local developments and exter­ fascinating, the study of the M B . Yes, he appears to take the nal influences. Afroasiatic roots of Ancient Greece naive view that the Egyptians actu­ B.P. But Baines maintains that would seem to me extremely useful ally resembled the uniform red- the concept of the cultural autonomy in a number of ways. It can help brown population seen in the tomb of different civilizations, while easily make sense of the half of the Greek paintings. Such a population never overstressed, “is essential because it vocabulary which cannot be ex­ existed. Baines misses the key point cieties are independent of the West discourages naive and dismissive plained in terms of other Indo-Eu­ that Egyptian painters and their pa­ or superior to it.” approaches and requires analysis of ropean languages. It can throw light trons were chiefly interested in cultures as composites of economic, on Greek religion, around which portraying peoples’ cultures and MB. The charge against Diop is political, ethnic, and other compo­ scholars have been groping blindly “national” identities, not their indi­ completely unfair because, although nents. for the past two centuries. Later vidual physical appearance. Thus, the book reviewed by Baines, Civi­ Greek contacts with the Phoenicians there was the stereotypical picture lization or Barbarism, is principally MB. I agree that if you want to allows us to analyze the emergence of homogenized Egyptians, as op­ interested in Egypt, in his other works understand the nature of Greek so­ of the polis democracy and chattel posed to the stereotypical more he is also concerned with many Af­ ciety in the 15th or 5th centuries slavery in the 8th century B.C., which Negroid people of Nubia and the rican cultures. The accusation of B.C., you should look at the way in tations it has undergone in Japan can is something that Marx and his fol­ stereotypical yeUow, hook-nosed Eurocentricism against me is more which it worked as a whole. How­ tell us a great deal about the nature lowers and opponents have been peoples of the deserts to the North. justified. I do not believe that ever, that was not my purpose, which of Japanese civilization. To say that entirely unable to explain in local But information from physical an­ Pharaonic civilization made sub­ was to examine “The Afroasiatic Japanese society is not creative be­ terms. Knowledge of Egypt in what thropology of ancient Egypt shows stantial borrowings from any Euro­ Roots of Classical Civilization.” I cause it has borrowed massively is called the Late Period can also that the population was, in fact, much pean culture. However, my books should like to use an example to from outside is to miss the meaning throw considerable light on the de­ more varied and included Negroid, are Eurocentric in that they are make this point clear. Japan is ap­ of creativity. I believe that the velopment of Greek art, science, and East African, and Mediterranean concerned with Egyptian and West proximately the same distance from situation in the Aegean is analogous, continued on page 10 P-9 Interview of Lamar Herrin Interview continuedfrom page 7 cal dance around things, indirecting continued from page 7 ogy- on him, he’s already questioning yourself to death. Of course, with the unconscious, the dream forces, L.H. In the letter that Rilke writes God. He keeps looking for a sign knowing how it happened, or that affirmations comes the heightened and getting them up into to the young poet, which I’ve quoted from God, that this killing that he she has come upon something im­ language, comes the high dramati­ dramatizable form, if that's what in Rio Loja Ringmaster, he says, if thrills to is somehow God-ordained. portant. zations and so forth. Gothic means, then of course I’m you are going to be a real poet, there He never gets this sign in the book. In the final dying vision, Ed Gothic S.O. Who have you read lately, will come a day when you will go At the very end he might get it. recapitulates the images that serve of your contemporaries, that you beyond irony. Irony will be a kind of There’s no one particular dark night as paradigms for his life and leit­ S.O. In the way that Faulkner is remember and go back to, who are preliminary stage of your career as a of the soul but there’s constant ques­ motifs of the book: playing golf “on Gothic in that he sometimes relies capable of those affirmations, that poet, and then you will reach a point tioning of God. the great watery breast of the fair­ on melodrama to move the reader, a richness? where you must affirm. way,” and the whorled spiral of love melodramatic situation which is S.O. In The Lies Boys Tell, Ed which is driven by fear of loneliness. handled in heightened language. doesn’t seem to be questioning Talking to Ilerrin, I discovered anymore. Ed’s gotten a sign and is L.H. If that’s what you mean by How rich was the imagination of even the most ordinary that the faint intimations of Faulkner following it, and doesn’t question this dying vision evoked were Gothic. When I hear that term used man! How agile and youthful and wonderful to watch his following it. derogatorily about Southern fiction, were its productions, and how dull, by comparison, grounded in reality. “If I had to it usually has something to do with ungainly and old was the pain that thought it could drive L.H. One of the things I was choose the person whose voice re­ highlighting the freaks, the them offstage. They would not go! Stage dark, they conscious of while writing The Lies mains in my ears, it’s Faulkner,” he grotesques. Absalom, Absalom ends would illuminate themselves like will-o'-the-wisps. Boys Tell is that the title refers spe­ said. “He’s quoted in the book, but the quote is hidden. It’s from As I with a misbred outcast howling at What difference did it make if they were not true? cifically to that kind of seductive but the shell of a burned-out mansion; finally fallacious explanation about Lay Dying. I wasn’t thinking about .. .Truth? Death moving with the iron-dark weight of a life that people can fall into faced that novel when I wrote this, but the this is Gothic but it’s also great, glacier was truth while all along - yes, he understood it powerful fiction. I think it’s this fear with death. 1 thought about calling line just popped in.” now - he had preferred truth’s lies. the last twenty years - this is no the book Like Father, because it has Herrin is working on a new a lot to do with the metaphors that novel, set in Spain. “I married a secret - the idea of writing cautious, — from "The Lies Boys Tell" careful seminar-conscious fiction we’re willing to believe when con­ Spaniard and lived in Spain a number where people fear melodrama and fronted by the nothingness of death. of years. I have never written a 5.0. I don’t think that Larry The like-ness we cling to because novel about Spain, only some short they fear the excesses and they fear L.H. That richness, that depth and high drama. would find that affirmation, at least we can’t stand the incomparableness stories. This is about a man who complexity of involvement. Louise I think that’s taken its toll on at the beginning of The Lies Boys of death. And the vision Ed dies on, fought in the Abraham Lincoln Erdrich’s Love Medicine is a book American fiction. We’ve got a lot of Tell. he insists that death comes up in Brigade for the Republic, the Loy­ like that. very accomplished writers in this him, Quit he feels this coldness en­ alists in the Spanish Civil War, who country, and yet we haven't got a lot 5.0. She doesn’t seem afraid of L.H. This may be true. I think by tering his body, and he knows it’s goes back to live under Franco.” of terribly memorable writers in this excess or melodrama. the end, he should. I hope he would. like nothing lie’s ever experienced, “Writing a novel is such an or­ deal," Herrin noted. “You hold your country. I can applaud accomplished yet he insists on finding likenesses. L.H. What wonderful scenes, 5.0. Whereas Stonewall Jackson writing and I love it when I’m reading The last likeness he finds is “like his breath and go under, and two years what staging of scenes. She does it never has that problem. Or does he it, but I like to remember writing. I mother’s womb holding him warm later you surface and everything's again and again and again, scenes have a moment of doubt? like to read something and ten years once more,” so he has that image of changed. There are less nerve- that any one other novelist would be wracking ways to make a living.” later remember it. What I remember L.H. I think he goes up and down birth as he dies. He insists on this. I pleased to use as his or her climactic is having read something that was throughout the book. Even when think this is not a religious vision but scene, she just throws around. Site’s Judith Pratt holds a PH D. in Theatre. accomplished, I don’t remember he’s in Winchester in the beginning a humanistic affirmation. got ten of them in that book! She is a freelance writer in Ithaca who what I’ve read. I think that comes of the book and wins the battle and Stewart O'Nan is an MFA student at has acted with local theatre companies form this idea of backing off of 5 .0 . And beyond scenes, Erdrich then is driven out of Winchester, Cornell University. and taught theatre on the college le\ el. affirmations, doing a kind of ironi­ gives us families, a world, a cosmol­ and the Union army’s converging

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The correlation between anti-Semitism should take a writer’s Jewishness consider the book, particularly those tem are seriously handicapped if they difference between us on this issue and the dismissal of the historical into account, though information on from “minorities” and academics, fail to take into account the repeated is that of whom we trust He believes role of the Phoenicians, who were such things as his or her sexual have become overwhelming. The and massive influences of Egypt and in modem historical archaeological commonly perceived as the Jews of preference would be unnecessary second reason for reviewing Volume the Levant on the Aegean. scholarship and is very skeptical of antiquity. and distracting. As my own case II rather than Volume I is that the ancient writings. I think that one The persistence of institu­ shows, ethnicity will not always history of Greek origins is thought B.P. How would you respond to should be much more wary of 19th - tional anti-Semitism in American predict the scholarly conclusions to be a more favorable terrain on the following characterization of and 20th - century scholarship, not academia until the 1960’s has now arrived at, but information on it is which to join battle with Bernal than both you and Diop by Baines: merely because the modem scholars been amply documented. Its impact relevant to issues such as the extent historiography. “[They] come across as conservative are far more distant from the times on scholars in Classics of this period of Egyptian and Levantine influence B.P. Might not another reason be writers who have not absorbed the discussed, but also because they were is illustrated by the fact that Moses on Greece. Baines’ assessment that your views methods of archaeology and text overwhelmed by contemporary Eu­ Finkelstein fount it expedient to B.P. Why do you think the Times “have not commanded acceptance criticism. While archaeologists ropean triumphs and, believing in publish under the name of M. I. failed to review the first volume of among classical and Middle Eastern concern themselves with the slow permanent “racial essences,” they Finley. M. I. Finley may be one of Black Athena? scholars?” change of premodem times docu­ projected these and a categorical the Jewish scholars whom John mented by ceramics, architecture and distinction between Europe and other Baines has in mind as opposing MB. I think the reasons for the M B. One would not expect many settlement patterns, these authors are continents into the distant past Thus, Astour’s ideas. It is true that Finley refusal varied over time, but that, by scholars who have devoted their lives more interested in the sweep of they had strong ideological reasons was essentially orthodox on this is­ the end, it was because it was diffi­ to working within one intellectual legend. While most readers of an­ to discredit the ancient writers who sue. However, I have not seen any cult to find an academic who could framework to rush forward to greet cient texts question their veracity described Greece’s great cultural published attacks by him or any other effectively challenge the a radical new opinion, saying “He or and are on the lookout for rhetorical debts to Egypt and Southwest Asia. Jewish scholar on the work of historiographic aspect of my work. she is right, we were completely embellishments, fiction and duplic­ Baines mentions that many classi­ wrong.” What has amazed me, and B.P. Baines says that your work Gordon and Astour. I believe that in ity, these authors read their texts far cists reacted favorably to my confounded my sociology of goes “contrary to normal practice” the 1960’s, Gordon and Astour were more literally.” knowledge, is not the rejections but M B. I believe that archaeologists the number of scholars from the should be on the lookout for both relevant disciplines who have ac­ slow local developments and sudden cepted considerable portions of my changes, some of which come from historical and linguistic arguments, outside. This is because both types even before they were fully pub­ of processes have taken place in the lished. If John Baines were to read past. For instance, there is no reason the many articles published on these to suppose that the unification of ideas in the classical journal Areth usa Egypt in the 4th millenium was a and the Journal of Mediterranean gradual process, or that the fall of Archaeo fogy he would see that many Ebla in the 3rd was not dramatic and scholars, especially - though not with far-reaching consequences. 1 exclusively younger ones - concur am equally opposed to the unremit­ with me on many issues mainly be­ ting skepticism of the orthodox cause their own research had been modem scholarly approach to an­ leading them in the same direction. cient texts. Of course, there are B.P. Baines says he detects a many examples of rhetorical em­ softening of your tone in Volume II bellishments, fiction and duplicity as opposed to the first volume of and these should be labelled as such, Black Athena. Do you concur? but there are also enough examples M B. One reason for this has been of ancient texts being confirmed by the unexpectedly warm response of archaeological finds to show the the classicists and ancient historians historicity of some of the statements to my work, another is the fact that contained in them. one comes to resemble what one B.P. Baines says that you seek struggles against especially if, as in “to revise current understanding of this case, the struggle is long and at ancient Middle Eastern history by close quarters. The softening of the taking seriously the Ancient Greeks’ combat is the result of compromises legends that portrayed much in their on both sides. I have undoubtedly civilization as originating in the shifted ground in some areas. For Middle East, and especially in Egypt instance, 1 have been persuaded by archaeological evidence that Greeks MB. Like John Baines, I believe may have played a greater role than that myths are constructed mainly to I first thought in the East Mediterra­ explain and justify the present. nean during the Late Bronze Age. However, I also maintain that they On the other hand, I believe that my may have historical elements. We opponents have made even greater can tell this, for instance, in the concessions. As John Baines points Germanic Nibelungenlied or the out, many classicists have reacted Welsh Mabinogion, which contain Illustration: Bern Nadeltnan favorably to the historiographical both high fantasy and the names and in that you introduce other scholars dismissed partly because of their “analysis of the racist biases in scheme laid out in Volume I. On the conquests of historically attested by identifying their country and ethnic origin, not so much because scholarship.” However, it is pre­ areas with which Volume II is con­ figures. Such employment of past ethnicity and then often explain “the of crude anti-Semitism of the type cisely my historiography that is most cerned, there is an acceptance of events to serve present needs is not success or failure of their ideas in known in the 1920’s and 1930’s but threatening to the crusade against substantial Egyptian and Levantine restricted to myths and legends. It terms of their ethnicity.” Baines more through a slightly subtler form, “political correctness” in which the influence on tire development of also occurs in modern continues: “For example, [Bernal] not usually expressed in words but New York Times is playing a criti­ Greece in the Bronze Age. This is historiography. History cannot be a asserts that the Semitist Michael more in gesture, expression and in­ cally important role. The justifica­ not something that was readily con­ recital of the whole past. It is nec­ Astour’s work on the Semitic influ­ tonation all of which indicated “Well, tion for the crusade is that ‘60’s ceded 10 or 15 years ago. I cannot essarily made up of only tiny frag­ ence on Greek civilization has been of course, they would push the Se­ radicals have come to power in the claim much of the credit for this ments of it which are often shaped ignored because Mr. Astour is Jew­ mitic component of Greek civiliza­ humanities and are introducing their shift. Archaeological discoveries, and selected fbr present political and ish, even though many of the scholars tion, wouldn’t they. They have a politics into what had previously notably the murals from Thera and moral purposes. who have not accepted his beliefs vested interest, they’re Jewish.” It been unsullied and objective schol­ the incredibly rich Late Bronze Age B.P. But how is it possible to are Jewish themselves.” was not their knowledge or intelli­ arship. What Volume I of Black shipwreck found at Kas off the distinguish the historical compo­ gence that were questioned but their Athena has demonstrated is that southern coast of Turkey, have re­ MB. In point of fact, it is quite “judgment.” It was their detachment classics - the discipline at the heart nents of myth or legend? vealed a cosmopolitan society normal for historiography to refer to and objectivity that were denied. If of the cult of Western Civilization - around the East Mediterranean in MB. First, one can remove the a scholar’s country of origin. See I am right about this, and I am con­ has been steeped in politics from its the 2nd millenium B.C. that is im­ elements that contradict natural for example, the three instances of fident that I am, it leads on to the beginnings. possible to wish away. Neverthe­ science — descent from the stars, this practice on page 24 of Baines’ general issue of whether the con­ less, I strongly suspect that the un­ B.P. Yet the Times has published centaurs, one-eyed giants, speaking excellent Atlas of Ancient Egypt. ventional view that only male white dermining of the authority of the this review of the second volume of horses, etc. Then, the themes com­ However, he is quite right that it has Gentiles and those who think like Aryamst conventional wisdom made your book. mon to folklore around the world not been usual to mention whether them can transcend their partisanship by Volume I has facilitated this shift may be set aside, such themes as or not a scholar is Jewish. In many to reach a general objectivity. MB. The major reviews of Vol­ of viewpoint. I hope that Volume II fifty sons marrying fifty daughters. cases such identification was re­ Clearly this is absurd and their work ume II in the New York Times and the will continue this process. I have no What remains after these siftings dundant as a German Jewish or has the same mix of partiality and Washington Post reflect both per­ doubt that I a n generally on the right should be subjected to scrutiny in Hebrew name made it clear. In this transcendance as that of women and sonal and ideological changes. In track and I am almost equally confi­ terms of information from other case, Professor Astour himself is not others without power. recent years some people involved dent that within the next ten years sources, parallel legends from other happy that I mentioned the fact. I I believe that it is proper that in the review sections of national most of the relevant scholars will societies, early documents, archae­ did so partly because his name, like the reader should be alerted to the newspapers have had personal con­ see things in the same way. What ology and historical linguistics. Fi­ that of Cyrus Gordon, did not indi­ background of a scholar on issues tacts that have tended to make them happeas in society at large is another nally, what conforms to these should cate that they were Jewish and be­ that have a direct bearing on the take my work more seriously. Those question. p.ll Martin Bernal and Black Athena continued from page 8 that people who are liberals in their us whites.” I think recognition of problem is: what would count as a civilization. Arc these unintended unsavory, specifically racist politics political beliefs, but traditionalists Egypt as an African civilization with substansive critique? For instance, ideological effects? what if Linear A, one of the writing on the formation of the modern within classics, don’t want to be a central role in the formation of MB. They’re unintended. I systems from Crete, turns out not to discipline of classics. That’s the seen as conservative or racist. Greece - the critical culture in the suppose I get pleasure from Sesostris. making of European civilization - be Semitic? main damage to the crusade. Reversal of the traditional picture of W.C. Where is the field right now? changes black perception, and in a W.C. Attackers of political M B . That wouldn’t be devastating. Europe as conqueror and Africa as way I hope to oppose to Negritude - correctness have defended the Great MB. The relevant fields would But it most of the pre-Hellenic words conquered does give me satisfaction, the notion that Black Africa is feeling Books against the new barbarians now admit: “Yes, he’s very likely could be derived from a newly although I try to express sympathy and Greece is intellect. who supposedly don't teach them. right in Volume I. We accept his discovered Anatolian language for the victims. On the Hyksos I gel historiography. We don't accept his You cut across that debate, providing W.C. Do you see any political which had a substantial portion of confused, because ideologically I’d a different angle on Great Books. history.” But even on history, ground consequences for blacks? the non-Indo-European words of prefer not to have diffusion by has been given. “Yes,” specialists Greek in it, that would certainly conquest. But history isn’t always MB. Well, one should read great say, “there was substantial Near MB. Many blacks are getting falsify it. as you like it. I say what I believe to books, but “Great Books” is such a Eastern influence on Greece in the psychological satisfaction from be the case. loaded phrase. What 1 object to is Bronze Age.” So there’s been a big Egypt now. In a way these cultural W.C. There’s also a theoretical the reverence with which they’re shift since Black Athena came out. I concerns represent a retreat from issue. Some people argue, “What’s W.C. Do you take your work to be approached. One should look can claim some of the credit, but by political action. The mood described great about Volume I is that he anti-European? doesn’t argue truth or falsity; he skeptically and creatively at them. no means all. The current battle is as “political correctness” is anti­ M B . My enemy is not Europe; it’s It’s strange that I should start using argues bias.” But in Volume II the on colonizations, and I expect one defamation writ large. It’s sensitivity purity - and the idea that purity ever capitalist metaphors, but I see it as a demonstrations of bias are obviously on language. to deprived groups. It’s entirely exists, or that, if it does exist it is marketplace of ideas, rather than as in the service of truth claims. Is that somehow more creative, culturally, a shrine, which is what the new right an inconsistency between the two than mixture. wants it to become. volumes, or does the first make the truth claims about scholarship and W.C. My final question: you begin W.C. You’ve talked about who’s the second about historical evidence? the preface to Volume II by writing, liked or disliked Black Athena. More “The publication of Volume I of M B . That’s what I’m trying to do. generally, who’s your audience? Black Athena transformed my life.” A number of deconstructionists have How does it feel to be a prophet no M B . Volume I was written for the said, “Wonderful! You’ve longer crying in the wilderness? cultivated lay-public - for New York deconstructed classics. But why then Times readers. Since I thought I goon? It’sold-lashioned, the 19th- MB. I much prefer the current, couldn’t persuade academics, my century way, to set up your own more comfortable role. I don’t find strategy was to outflank them by scheme, which will be as false as being totally alone comforting, but I reaching a group which could any oilier.” I’m trying to make sense never was totally alone. When I influence them. My unspoken of both cases, but many people prefer started talking about my ideas, very assumption was that most of the me to make it only about the few people treated me as deranged. readership would be white. So there scholarship. You can say something The idea held by a lot of people, were two surprises: one is the way about 19th-century historians; you particularly blacks, that 1 really blacks took it up; the other was that illustration: Benn Nadebnan can’t say anything about as distant a suffered to produce this book has academics were more open to the period as the Aegean Bronze Age. been greatly exaggerated. I had a book than I’d anticipated. W.C. Presumably that’s the area admirable, but that this should be tenured job and people talking to where philologists are lying in wait. the key issue shows how little is W.C. That doesn’t seem like a valid W.C. Do you feel you reached that me. I don’t want to make myself going on in radical politics. philosophical distinction. cultivated lay-audience in Volume MB. Yes, but I’m doing what into a martyr or prophet who has I? Greenberg [comparative linguist W.C. Can this kind of satisfaction MB. Well, people who are on to suffered. But I do like being able to Joseph H. Greenberg] has done in be expanded beyond the black the old-fashioned nature of the discuss the ideas and receive MB. Not until recently. But this languages, which is mass community? project have something, in that I’m correspondence, which 1 get from year there have been a number of comparison. You don’t have MB. Yes. Liberal America may making truth claims in both recognition. It’s very rewarding. articles in the popular press and precision in each case - which I think come to look at Greece as'a parallel instances. reviews of Volume II in The New Walter Cohen is the author of "Drama is asking too much when dealing not to a diverse America. Greece’s York Times and Washington Post. W.C. Let me ask you about of a Nation: Public Theater in with genetic changes but with loans. culture was nearly as diverse as Somehow a breakthrough has ideology. You focus so much on Renaissance England and Spain" If there arc a mass of plausible modem America’s. Although this occurred. I think that breakthrough racism that other issues disappear. (Cornell University Press, 1985) and etymologies for words with no view can probably be turned into results from Afrocentrism rather than The star exhibits are Sesostris of teaches in the Comparative Literature etymologies at present, it will be some melting pot image, at least it Black Athena. I’m not an Egypt marching through Asia Minor, Department at Cornell. difficult for them to hold the line. will be a melting pot with many Afrocentrist, and I have difficulties leaving a trail of destruction; or the more flavors in it over this, but in another way it’s W.C. Have there been any Hyksos establishing colonies -and been a stroke of luck. And also substantive specialist critiques of W.C. One of the attractions of your setting up Mycenaean civilization. * Volume II gives a solidity to Volume your work? work is the range of materials it Imperialism becomes a sign of the I. utilizes. But the methodological importance of Near Eastern M B . No. They’re going to try and W.C. What about the response of draw the line outside academia, and classicists? to some extent with money. for Anything with my name on it gets its MB. I misjudged the field of funding cut. It’s not a systematic classics, seeing it as a hostile advertising block, however: I was delighted by monolith. I hadn't noticed its internal the recent Newsweek story on me. I information, tensions or dissident constituencies. One is a group I’d never considered can’t see a general conspiracy, but I call (607) think there is passionate hostility in Get fhfpticed - Latinists, who feel that Hellenists J ^ in the BOOKPRESS! have been lording it over them for right-wing ideological circles. 277-7544 eighty years. Some Latinists have W.C. Getting back to consequences helped me enormously. Second, of your work: do you imagine women in classics are exploited, and changes in textbooks of ancient there’s a great deal of resentment. civilization? The key panel on Black Athena at the American Philological Association MB. They’re happening already- was organized by a woman; three of not all that way, but they’re sensitive FINE - LINE the four panelists were women. now to not paying enough attention There’ also the “tyranny of to earlier civilizations, and to pushing philology.” Literary critics, art Greece too much. Strangely enough, PRI-NTI-NG historians, and archaeologists are the authors of textbooks have been terrified of the philologists, who have moving faster than classicists. a core position in the discipline. W.C. Will it matter if you win the High-Quality Offset Printing Therefore, that I should shake argument - given our Systran’s ability philological foundations gives other to neutralize heterodox ideas? ] 7 classicists a certain Schadenfreude. 1 1 -i— |------1 So all sorts of schisms made the field M B. Five years ago you said, “You — far from unified in its hostility put in these non-European elements, towards me. but you still have a certain European S a d something that synthesizes things.” W.C. Volume I puts your opponents All 1 could answer then, and all I can on the defensive - not just because answer now is that it’s a step forward. it’s a learned and well-executed But I think it is an important one for Complete Service — Camera to Bindery book, but because they are afraid of the black community, which has being called racists. been told, “There are no - and never MB. There are two levels to this have been any - black civilizations.” z: response. One is the scholarly The implication is, there never can 272-1177 feeling: “He’s probably wrong, but be: “You blacks are inherently we can’t show it, because we aren’t uncivilized, and if you want any 409'/2 WEST STATE STREET (NEXT TO ITHACA THEATER) in control of the data.” Another is civilization you must become like p. 12 the BOOKPRESS November, 1991 PUFFIN BOOKS &AVON BOOKS THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS FOR CHILDREN

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