Duke University Dissertation Template
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“Can’t Go Home Again: Sovereign Entanglements and the Black Radical Tradition in the Twentieth Century” by Alvaro Andrés Reyes Literature Program Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Wahneema Lubiano, Supervisor ___________________________ Michael Hardt, Supervisor ___________________________ Kathi Weeks ___________________________ Fred Moten Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Literature Program in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 ABSTRACT “Can’t Go Home Again: Sovereign Entanglements and the Black Radical Tradition in the Twentieth Century” by Alvaro Andrés Reyes Literature Program Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Wahneema Lubiano, Supervisor ___________________________ Michael Hardt, Supervisor ___________________________ Kathi Weeks ___________________________ Fred Moten An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Literature Program in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 Copyright by Alvaro Andrés Reyes 2009 Abstract This dissertation investigates the relation between the formation of “Blackness” and the Western tradition of sovereignty through the works of late twentieth century Black Radical theorists. I most specifically examine the work of Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka, Frantz Fanon, and Huey P. Newton in order to delineate a shift within Black Radicalism which, due to an intense de-linking of Black nationalism from the concept of territorial sovereignty throughout the 1960s and early 1970s led to the formation of a new subjectivity (“Blackness”) oriented against and beyond the Western tradition of political sovereignty as a whole. This dissertation begins by outlining the parameters of the concept of sovereignty as well as its relation to conquest, coloniality, and racialization more generally. I then examine the formation of Black Power as an expression of anti-colonial sentiments present within the United States and uncover there the influence of W.E.B. DuBois’ concept of double-consciousness. I then further examine the concept of Black Power through the work of Amiri Baraka and his notion of “Blackness” as the proximity to “home.” Each of these expositions of Black Power are undertaken in order to better understand the era of Black Power and its relation to both Black nationalism and the Western tradition of sovereignty. iv Next, I turn to the work of Frantz Fanon, whom I claim prepares the way for the idea of “Blackness” as an ontological resistance beyond, not only the territorial imperative, but also the logic of sovereignty more generally. This notion of “Blackness” as an antidote to sovereign logic present within the work of Fanon allows me to turn to the work of Huey P. Newton in order to demonstrate his conceptualization of “Blackness” as an antagonistic subjectivity within a fully globalized society whose onset he had theorized and which he termed “empire.” I conclude by drawing on each of the above theorists as well as the work of Angela Davis in order to build a retrospective summary of this alternative lineage of the Black Radical Tradition and its importance for the conceptualization of resistances to and life beyond our contemporary society. v Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv 1. INTRODUCTION: SOVEREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS ...................................................... 1 2. Sovereignty, or Domination .................................................................................................. 12 2.1 The Concept of Sovereignty .......................................................................................... 12 2.2 The Logic of Conquest ................................................................................................... 15 2.3 Sovereignty: The Mirror of Power ............................................................................... 21 2.3.1 From the Sovereign ................................................................................................... 21 2.3.2 To The Sovereign Subject ......................................................................................... 24 2.3.2.1 Francisco Vitoria ................................................................................................ 24 2.3.2.2 In Vitoria’s Footsteps ......................................................................................... 28 2.3.3 And Back Again, or, Putting the Split Subject to Work ....................................... 33 2.4 Sovereignty and “The Veil” .......................................................................................... 36 3. BLACK POWER OR SOVEREIGN POWER ....................................................................... 42 3.1 Introduction: The Legacy of Malcolm X ...................................................................... 42 3.2 Black Power: Blackness as “Double Consciousness” ................................................ 48 3.2.1 “What We’re Gonna Start Saying Now” ................................................................ 48 3.2.2 DuBois as Precursor .................................................................................................. 53 3.2.2.1 Double Consciousness, the Narrative ............................................................. 54 3.2.2.2 DuBois’ Unhappy Consciousness .................................................................... 56 3.2.2.3 Critical Idealism and the Talented Tenth ....................................................... 65 vi 3.2.3 Double Consciousness and the Political Imaginary of Black Power .................. 69 3.3 Amiri Baraka: Black Power as “Home” ....................................................................... 78 3.3.1 “Home,” Baraka’s Impasse ...................................................................................... 85 3.4 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 96 4. FANON: SOVEREIGNTY, ALTERITY, AND AUTHENTIC LOVE ............................... 99 4.1 Fanon and the Reductions of Manicheanism ........................................................... 101 4.1.1 Ambivalence............................................................................................................. 101 4.1.2 A World Divided in Two ........................................................................................ 103 4.1.3 Manichean Inversion............................................................................................... 106 4.1.4 Manicheanism, Partisan Struggle, and Anti-colonial Strategy ......................... 109 4.2 Power, Repression, and the Black Slave .................................................................... 116 4.2.1 White Master, French Black Slave ......................................................................... 116 4.2.2 The Power of Fanon’s Refusal of Labor ............................................................... 119 4.2.3 Help from Friends ................................................................................................... 122 4.2.4 War and Repression ................................................................................................ 124 4.3 The Dialectic and Black Ontological Resistance ....................................................... 127 4.3.1 Initial Misgivings ..................................................................................................... 127 4.3.2 Substantive Absoluteness ....................................................................................... 128 4.3.3 Beyond Negation, Authentic Love ........................................................................ 132 4.4 The New Nation and the New Man .......................................................................... 136 4.4.1 Beyond National Consciousness ........................................................................... 136 4.4.2 The New Nation and Class Conflict ..................................................................... 141 vii 4.4.3 The People Themselves .......................................................................................... 149 4.4.4 Conclusion: Sovereignty and the New Man ........................................................ 152 5. HUEY NEWTON: CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN, BLACKNESS IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE ...................................................................................................................................... 156 5.1 Introduction: Huey Newton, Radical Theorist ......................................................... 156 5.2 Founding the Party ....................................................................................................... 158 5.2.1 Beginnings ................................................................................................................ 158 5.2.2 A Nation Within a Nation ...................................................................................... 162 5.2.3 Picking Up the Gun ................................................................................................. 165 5.2.4 The Death of Non-Violence .................................................................................... 168 5.3 Intercommunalism ......................................................................................................