“The political economy of underdevelopment, more than sexual intercourse, is killing Africans.”

—from Charles Geshekter's “The African AIDS Hoax”

 

TRANSITION 67: Table of Contents

 

POSITIONS____________________

The African AIDS Hoax
Is African AIDS one of the world's greatest health crises? The WHO estimates that half of the world's AIDS cases are in Africa — a burgeoing black holocaust affecting men and women, hetero- and homosexual alike. A terrifying prospect — but is it real? Charles L. Geshekter argues that the figures simply don't add up.

Colin Ferguson, “Me” and “I”
Was the Long Island Railroad killer motivated by “black rage,” paranoia, or a lingustic confusion? Rhonda Cobham-Sander diagnoses a Creole psychosis.

The Riddle of Cantinflas
He was the greatest star of the Golden Age of Latin American cinema, the punning clown whose rise and fall describe the obscure movements of Mexico in the 20th century — Cantinflas, revolutionary icon and millionaire, the pacific subversive. Ilan Stavans spins a tale of laughter and forgetting.

Fear of the Beard
Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan: a powerful bloc of fundamentalist Muslim nations may be in the offing, the realization of a State Department nightmare. Is an epic clash of civilizations inevitable — the Enlightened West against the rabid rest? Abouali Farmanfarmaian suggests otherwise.

UNDER REVIEW____________________

Blind Date
Can the agnosticism of classical liberalism be reconciled with the cultural triumphalism of the multiculturalist? Louis Menand considers the case for a politics of recognition.

The Ordeal of Middlebrow Culture
Harold Bloom's Western Canon appears to be a ringing defense of the high culture of the West. But its sympathies, and its audience, are more mass-cultural — and more American — than its author might allow. John Guillory considers the anxiety of the middlebrow.

The Culture Wars for Grown-Ups
Is Barney the dinosaur a member of the cultural elite? Some people in Washington seem to think so. Examining two recent books on the culture of the academy, Bruce Robbins suggests we might need to change the terms of the debate.

Mumbo Gumbo
Ishmael Reed's politico-literary career has long been devoted to unsettling conventional pieties. He's a bull in the china-shop of white privilege. Robert Eliot Fox takes stock of a literary loose canon.

Speak Easy
The late President of Trinidad and Tobago was a pioneering economic historian. But what of his leadership? Barbara Solow assesses Eric E. Williams's various legacies.

Check Your Head
Rap music has entered the academy as well as the arena, “bum-rushing” English and music departments and spawning a boomlet of books on hiphop culture. Nick De Genova assays the cultural politics of rap — and rap criticism.

Souljah On Ice
Sister Souljah, one of rap's most voluble female voices, weighs in on the crisis of African-American gender relations with a slightly bizarre primer, a guide to the black Dating Game. Philippe Wamba goes along for the ride.

Haiti's Unquiet Past
Katherine Dunham, a pioneer of modern dance, visited Haiti in 1936; her life, and her art, were changed forever by the encounter. Joan Dayan tells the story of an African American in Port-au-Prince.

Seeing White
“Whiteness” has become a critical keyword of late, as writers turn a critical eye to the last great preserve of identity politics. But what results from the deconstruction of white identity? Wither whiteness? Peter Erickson surveys the theoretical terrain.

CONVERSATION____________________

The Artful Voyeur
On private life and public art, and the power of memory, both individual and collective. Diane Wood Middlebrook moderates a discussion with artist Anna Deavere Smith and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

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