From the shadows: Houston Baker's move toward a postnationalist appraisal of the Black aesthetic
SHE PERIOD SPANNING 1976 to 1988 represents Houston Baker's use of cultural anthropology to examine the historical and linguistic variables responsible for what he terms the sui generis nature of black literature. Drafted primarily in "On the Criticism of Black American Literature: One View of the Black Aesthetic" (1976), "A Note on Style and the Anthropology of Art" (1980), and The Journey Back (1980),9 Baker's postnationalistic thought embodies what he believes to be a less politicized approach for studying and analyzing the black aesthetic. In effect, to examine his work from 1976 to 1988 is to take measure of one-labeled "the doyen of Afro-American literary critics"4-striving to move beyond black nationalist aesthetic standards by employing theoretical alternatives promising advanced analyses of black artistic culture. But as I will argue in this paper, Baker remains unfair in his analysis of the nationalist spokespersons Amiri Baraka and Addison Gayle by presenting them in an uneven light, a light which enshadows Baker's own derivation from and postnationalistic dependence on the ideas both represent. In 1976 Baker began a frontal attack against the Black Arts Movement in "On the Criticism of Black American Literature: One View of the