Houston A. Baker Jr.

Houston A. Baker Jr.
Occupation	writer, educator
Nationality	American
Subject	English, African American studies

Houston Alfred Baker Jr. (born March 22, 1943 in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American scholar specializing in African American literature and currently serving as a Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt University in the English department.

Baker served as president of the Modern Language Association, editor of the journal American Literature, and has authored several books.

Early life and career

Baker was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, which he later described as "racist" and "stultifying". The racism and violence he says he experienced as a youth would later prompt him to conclude "I had been discriminated against and called 'Nigger' enough to think that what America needed was a good Black Revolution." He recently revised such a summary judgment in his book combining memoir and critique titled "I Don't Hate the South" (Oxford University Press, 2007). His academic career initially progressed along traditional lines. He earned a B.A. in English literature from Howard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Victorian literature from the University of California. He began teaching at Yale University and intended to write a biography of Oscar Wilde.

Views on race

Holding "an exceedingly pessimistic view of American social progress where race is concerned," Baker has written numerous books on African Americans in modern American society. In his book Turning South Again: Rethinking Modernism/Rereading Booker T, he suggests that black Americans are amounted to a kind of prison sentence no matter how successful they become.

2006 Duke University lacrosse team scandal

During the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, Baker published an open letter calling for Duke to dismiss the team and its players. Baker wrote that "white, male, athletic privilege" was responsible for the alleged rape. Baker suggested that the Duke administration was "sweeping things under the rug." More generally, Baker's letter criticized colleges and universities for the "blind-eyeing of male athletes, veritably given license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech, and feel proud of themselves in the bargain."

Duke Provost Peter Lange responded to Baker's letter a few days later, criticizing Baker for prejudging the team based on their race and gender. Lange maintained that a rush to judgment would do little to remedy the deeper problems and that open letters such as Baker's do little to further the cause of social justice. In April 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared the three players innocent.

References

• Awkward, Michael. "Houston A. Baker, Jr." The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. William L. Andres, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, ed. Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Hatch, Shari Dorantes and Michael R. Strickland. African-American Writers: A Dictionary. ABC-CLIO, 2000.
• "Houston A. Baker, Jr." Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2007.
• "Houston A. Baker, Jr." Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 6. Gale Research, 1994.
• "Houston A. Baker, Jr." The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 228-29.
• "Houston A. Baker, Jr." Notable Black American Men Book II, Thomson Gale, 2006.

Works

Baker, Houston A. (1984). Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory. University of Chicago Press.

Baker, Houston A. (1987). Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. University of Chicago Press.

Baker, Houston A. (1993). Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy. University of Chicago Press.

Baker, Houston A. (2001). Turning South Again: Re-Thinking Modernism/Re-Reading Booker T. Duke University Press.

External links

• Vanderbilt Faculty Page
• Full Letters of Baker and Provost Lange
• Terry Teachout's 1993 New Criterion article on Houston Baker