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Stephen Hall, history

Posted on | February 3, 2010 | 2,263 views |

Stephen Hall is a historian with broad interests in American, European, African American, Caribbean and African history. He has taught courses in all of these areas over the past ten years. He is the recent author of A Faithful Account of the Race: African American Historical Writing in Nineteenth Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). It appears in the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture.

What are your five favorite books and why?

• W.E.B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk
DuBois’ Souls is  a classic work in American and African American literature. The book, published in 1903, consists of a series of previously published essays that convey the complex social, political, ideological and theological concerns confronting African Americans  and Americans, in general, in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century. Viewed primarily as a endorsement of black civil rights, especially when juxtaposed with Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, DuBois’ work is more profitably read as celebration of the complex manifestations of black humanity in a moment framed by the  contested realities of modernity.

• Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
In my estimation, Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the greatest love stories in the English language. I first encountered the book in a college English course. Zora Neale Hurston, who studied under Franz Boas, the well-known anthropologist, spent a considerable portion of her life traveling throughout the South collecting black folklore. The heroine in the novel, Janie Crawford, is a paragon of modern womanhood. She is assertive, goal driven and incredibly resilient. The book’s power emanates not only from the power of Janie’s personality, but Hurston’s gifts as a storyteller as she sketches out her story on the  rich cultural canvas of the American South. The book, written completely in southern dialect, tells the story of Janie and her journey through love and life, especially her relationship with Tea Cake.  Although not a tragedy, this story rivals that of Romeo and Juliet while possessing all of the complexity found in the Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Eyes is a powerful and poignant novel of human possibility and the ability to continue to have faith in humanity even when those whom you care about severely disappoint you.

• Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
I first read Invisible Man as a senior in high school. Winner of the National Book Award, the first book by a black author to achieve this honor, Ellison’s book evokes the complex meanings of race. Invisible Man  is the story of a young protagonist’s journey from visibility to invisibility. Ellison uses the protagonist’s journey to discuss the evolution of African American identity during the first half of the twentieth century. For me, what’s interesting about the book is the way Ellison uses the specifics of African American cultural and historical experience to illuminate the broader dynamics of the human experience. The novel combines history and fiction in a seamless manner providing a rich template for social and cultural dialogue.

•James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin is probably one of the best novelists and writer of critical essays. Go Tell it on the Mountain is a coming of age story that focuses on the Grimes family, a working-class black family, who are recent migrants to the North from the South. The story is told as a series of three prayers with a concluding fourth chapter. The story power emanates from Baldwin’s skillful reconstruction of the complex interpersonal relationships between the main characters, John, Gabriel and Florence.  Their lives and struggles are emblematic of so many migrants who participated in the Great Migration, the movement of large number of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North, Midwest and West during the first half of the twentieth century.  Baldwin’s work is masterful in his reconstruction of the role of religion in the lives of these characters. I, too, can identify with these characters because my parents, the children of sharecroppers, migrated North from North Carolina to Maryland in search of a better life.

• CLR James, The Black Jacobins
The political, social and cultural critic C.L.R. James offers a novelistic account of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). After successfully defeating three modern European armies, Haiti, in 1804, became the first black republic in the Western hemisphere. James is a masterful writer who recreates the lives and the realities faced by important leaders such as Toussaint L’Ouverture, Dessalines, Rigaud and Christophe. He sets their actions against the broader backdrop of revolutionary movements such as the American and French Revolutions.  Although several very good studies have been written, such as Carolyn Frick, The Making of the Haitian Revolution ; Thomas Ott’s The Haitian Revolution and most recently. Laurent DuBois’ Avengers of the New World, James’ Black Jacobins still remains the best introduction to the dynamics of the Haitian Revolution.

What is the last book you’ve bought?

I regularly purchase books of all types, but the most recent purchase is Mary Frances Berry’s My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations. The book tells the story of a little-known ex-slave and washerwoman, Callie House, who organized one of the earliest grassroots movements to secure reparations for formerly enslaved African Americans. While it is commonly believed that the struggle for reparations is a product of the civil rights and black power era, Berry demonstrates that this was not the case. House led the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty Pension Association. At its height the organization’s membership numbered more than 300,000. Berry’s work is a wonderful example of history’s relevance and importance in uncovering little known or understood events and occurrences.

What’s your “guilty pleasure” – a book you love but don’t often talk about because it’s not “serious” literature?

Can I cheat here?  The work that interests me  combines elements of history and science fiction in creative ways.  I have an active  interest in  science fiction. I am interested in classic work from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds to Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  Several years ago, while working at the Schomburg Center in New York, I heard a talk by Octavia Butler, the author of Kindred, shortly before her death, Her talk was absolutely brilliant. Butler’s discussion of her early interest in reading and imaginative recreations of various worlds and ideas reminded me of my own childhood.  I spent considerable amounts of time daydreaming and imagining fanciful and whimsical things. She also talked, rather poignantly, about her marginalization  because of her interests in science fiction and the false perception in the mainstream and among African Americans that her race and gender disqualified her from writing about or delving into these types of subjects. Nonetheless, she persevered and her work has won recognition in the form of Hugo and Nebula awards.

What is also interesting about Kindred, at least for me, is the fact that Butler conducted much of the research for the novel at the Enoch Pratt Library, which is the main library in Baltimore  City, Maryland,  provided me with a tangible connection to her work. I grew up in Baltimore County, Maryland, and  I am actually quite familiar with the Enoch Pratt library. I visited the library many times with my parents and later as a teenager and young adult in college. Moreover, much of the story occurs on the Eastern shore of Maryland. Members of my family actually lived in this part of the state, so this too was quite familiar to me. Kindred focuses on  Dana, an African American woman in an interracial marriage, who is transported  from the present to the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1824. There she is forced to confront the institution of slavery and her complex relationship with a white ancestor.

I am also a fan of Butler’s Wildseed, which, like Kindred, takes place in several different geographic locations and centuries including Africa (in the 17th century); New York (in the 18th century); and Louisiana (in the 19th century).  The plot of the novel  utilizes a broad set of cultural symbols from the African cultural context and focuses on the relationship between Anyanwu, a shape shifter, and Doro, a mindforce. Both of these characters are involved in trying to construct a new race.  I think Butler is absolutely masterful in exploring and centralizing issues of race, class and gender in her work. In many ways,  this book combines my interest in sci-fi with my historical interests, especially my work in African American history.

What book would you most want your kids to read? What would you want them NOT to read?

The  Odyssey by Homer. I am especially enamored of the translation by Robert Fagles. The Fagles  translation is one of the most accessible that I have read. This epic narrative poem , first conceived in oral form, is a classic of Western civilization. More importantly, it tells an epic story of human striving in the face of seemingly impossible odds: Odysseus’ ten year journey to return to his family in the aftermath of the Trojan War.  Anyone who has a family can appreciate the deep desire and longing to return to its warmth after a long journey. In every sense, Odysseus is everyman and woman in this regard.  Luckily, several years ago, I had the pleasure of reading it again with my eldest son. It was a sheer delight. I hope to share it soon with my other three children,

There are no books I would restrict that come readily to mind.  I believe books can and should edify the soul and thus they are as essential to our intellectual nourishment and growth.

What genre of literature do you prefer to read (history, fiction, biography, etc…) and why?

I am actually interested in several different forms. I cannot restrict myself to one genre. I think historical work is complimented by historical fiction. Some of the best history is written in novelistic form. I often use historical novels in my classes because they prove more accessible to students than standard historical accounts. Some of my favorite historical novels are:

• 1959 by Thulani Davis
• The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
• The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
• The Dew Breakers by Edwidge Danticat
• The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

What books have helped you most in your academic career?

I think one of the most influential books for me is David Levering Lewis’ W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1920. I am a big fan of Lewis’ work, especially his early work of Alfred Dreyfus and his masterful work on African history, Race to Fashoda. I was an undergraduate student when I first met David Lewis. He came to my college to recruit students for graduate school. He was actually working in the final stages of completing the manuscript and beginning work on the second volume. His description of  his trips to Russia and Ghana, where DuBois died on the eve of the March on Washington in 1962, left me awestruck.  This book stands out for me because it was published in 1993, my first year of doctoral study.  I literally read the book every day for two weeks.  It is, in my estimation, a model for how to teach, and write about historical events. Lewis’ biography uses the life of W.E.B. DuBois to provide us with a panoramic view of African American, European and American history between 1868 and 1920. In this sense, then, the book sketches out broad vistas through which we can appreciate the complexity and dynamism of African American history. We are forced to question our preconceptions and perceptions of what this history means, especially when situated in relationship to other national and transnational histories. Unfortunately, as I’ve recently discovered, this is not a quality that is appreciated or even expected in this particular subfield of American history, but I remain deeply committed to this cosmopolitan approach.  In terms of writing, the book has an incredibly novelistic feel to it, yet it embodies  the very best of academic writing through its rigor and stubborn logic.

One of the many interesting chapters in the book is “The Perpetual Dilemma.” It discusses, among other things, the effort by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Young, a West Point graduate, and, at the time, the highest ranking African American officer in the U.S. Army , to prove his fitness for continued service and promotion on the eve of U.S. entry into World War I.  Although questions lingered about his stamina and his high blood pressure,  many felt he would become the first black general in the U.S armed forces. Instead, he was promoted to full colonel and officially retired. Determined not to go quietly or meekly, he proves his stamina and fitness for service by riding on horseback from his National Guard command in Chillicothe, Ohio to Washington, D.C. I am one who can certainly appreciate the need to constantly believe in yourself despite misguided or unfair attempts by others to mislabel and misrepresent your work and contributions, even by those who should know better.

What are some of your favorite Web sites?

c-span.org- This is probably the most comprehensive site for staying abreast of developments in American politics.

npr.org - An excellent news source. I am a big fan of podcasts. I also like rebroadcasts of “Fresh Air” by Terry Gross. She interviews some of the most interesting people. “All Things Considered,” the main news show in the afternoon, is also useful.

Booktalk is a regular column that celebrates the literary likes and dislikes of Ohio State faculty and staff. To nominate someone for a future column, e-mail Julia Harris at harris.587@osu.edu.

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