楷模:杜波依斯、非裔美国知识分子与盖茨的《十三种观看黑人男性的方法》

Representative Men:W. E. B. Du Bois,African American Intellectuals,and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man by Henry Louis Gates,Jr.

盖茨的《十三种观看黑人男性的方法》一书共收人物侧写八篇,这些人物分别来自文学界、宗教界、军事界、演艺界等,无疑都是杜波依斯所说的"十分之一的杰出人士",他们的故事更是"力争上游的叙事"。摆在更大的美国传统里,这些人物又都是艾默森所谓的楷模,肩负着"代表的重担"。本文首叙杜波依斯的种族观与其所论"十分之一的杰出人士"的来龙去脉,接着分析其文化精英观如何为后世的非裔美国知识分子继承或扬弃。论文旨在连结杜波依斯与当代非裔美国知识分子的系谱关系,进一步论证盖茨如何藉其书中人物的生平言行,为自己开拓相当宽广的论述与批判空间,并藉此部署一种新的、不是那么强调种族的种族政治,以面对改变中的文化与社会现实。

In his Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man,Henry Louis Gates,Jr. includes profiles of eight African American celebrities in diverse fields such as literature,religion,the military,and the entertainment industry. These people are "the talented tenth" in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois,and their stories are "narratives of ascent". In the American tradition,they are what Ralph Waldo Emerson calls "representative men," entrusted with "the burden of representation". This paper first analyzes Du Bois perceptio...