TRANSITION 70: Table of Contents
POSITIONS____________________
Posthistoricism
What if the critics most anxious about identity politics
turn out to be the ones most indebted to them? Walter
Benn Michaels looks after the end of history.
Color Lines
In Kenya, fourth-generation Indians represent black-majority
districts in parliament, even as Senegalese merchants
cut deals for textiles and toys in Far Eastern capitals
from Shanghai to Singapore. On the cusp of the Pacific
Century, Michael Chege considers Asia, Africa,
and the future of the races.
Santa Selena
In life, Selena Quintanilla Peacuterez was the rising
star of Latin pop, a diva in lycra. In death, she
threatens to eclipse both Madonna and the Virgin of
Guadalupe. Ilan Stavans bears witness to the
apotheosis of Selena, Queen of the Border.
UNDER REVIEW____________________
Santa EvitaThe Argentine Cleopatra, a New World Eliza Doolittle, Cinderella in power, an exquisite corpse . . . Who was Eva Peròn? Carlos Fuentes glosses the myth.
Who's On Top?
Before there were machos and gays, there were cross-dressing
priests and transgendered conquistadors. Doris
Sommer details a new history of the conquest of
the Americas.
Highway to Hell
World-renowned travel writer Robert Kaplan sojourned
in Africa, his nights haunted by dreams of blood and
violent sex, his days by visions of brutality and
disease. Nuruddin Farah suggests that next
time he bring a mosquito net.
The End of Jazz?
Is “black classical music” as moribund as
white classical music? Who stole the soul — or
rather, did bebop give up the ghost? Dmitri Tymoczko
ponders the destiny of difficult music.
Performance Anxiety
Derek Walcott may have won the Nobel prize for his
poetry, but in his native West Indies he is most acclaimed
for the dozens of plays he has written, staged and
directed for over forty years. Tejumola Olaniyan
considers Walcott between the worlds.
Red, White, Black and Blue
Harlem is in vogue, again, but the meaning of the
original Harlem Renissance has never been more fiercely
contested. Was it black and beautiful, white and compromised,
or all-American? Eric J. Sundquist charts the
history of modernism and the new Negro.
CONVERSATIONS____________________
The Tropicalista RebellionCaetano Veloso is a pop-art theorist, mulatto propagandist, founder of the Tropicalist movement of the 1960s and, in his own words, “just a radio singer.” He's also the most popular performer in the history of Brazilian music. Christopher Dunn talks with him about art and politics, cultural cannibalism, and how he learned to love Carmen Miranda.
Farrakhan Speaks
Louis Farrakhan can be charming, engaging,
thoughtful, and also profoundly disturbing. The disciple
of Elijah Muhammad and the convener of the Million
Man March talks with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
about blacks and Jews, Christianity and Islam, Nigeria
and democracy, and the true meaning of whiteness.