《费城之火》:历史书写与现代性批判

当代非裔美国作家约翰·怀德曼的《费城之火》以费城历史上针对非裔“行动”组织的火灾事件为背景,表现了现代性进程下非裔内部的贫富差异,揭示了城市建设中以物质主义为导向与以原始自然为信仰的两种价值观的冲突,并进一步剖析了现代性的“进步”内涵和新一代非裔青年的问题。火灾的实质是非裔内部分化下工具理性与价值理性的冲突,怀德曼的历史书写体现了从非裔种族视角对现代性的批判与反思。

Taking the historical fire accident against the African organization“MOVE”in Philadelphia as the background,in his Philadelphia Fire the contemporary African American writer John Wideman displays the gap between the rich and the poor among the African people in the process of modernity,reveals the contradiction of the two values between materialism-orientedness and primitive natural belief in urban construction,and further analyzes the“progressiveness”connotations of modernity and the problems of the new generation of African-Americans young.The nature of the fire is the conflict between instrument rationality and value rationality under the internal differentiation of African-Americans,and Wideman’s historical writing displays criticism of and reflection on modernity from the perspective of African Americans.