Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 13

May 22, 2025: Malcolm X’s 100th: A Cameo in Selma

[May 19th marks the100th birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. So thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural representations of Malcolm,leading up to a special weekend post on what we can learn from Malcolm here in2025!]

On twoways to analyze Malcolm’s briefappearance in Ava DuVernay’s Selma (2014).

Just overten years ago, I wrotea piece about Selma and its representations of history for myTalking Points Memo column. While I didn’t address the film’s depiction ofMalcolm X in that column, I’m certainly continuing to consider thoseoverarching questions in this post, so in lieu of a first paragraph would askyou to check out that prior column and then come on back for those furtherthoughts.

Welcomeback! I know that my use of “distort” in that column’s title and main idea is acontroversial one, but I stand by my meaning: that our dominant narratives ofthe Civil Rights Movement, in cultural works as in every other layer ofcollective memory, have been those of white perspectives, and thus that we wereand remain long overdue for narratives shaped by Black perspectives instead(even if, per the example on which I focused there, Lyndon Johnson comes offlooking worse as a result). The film’s depiction of Malcolm X is shaped in aparallel but slightly different way: Selma’s central shaping perspectivesare those of Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King; so whenMalcolm X enters the story (played by Nigel Thatch, who has reprised the role in therecent TV series Godfather of Harlem), it’s through their eyes that wesee him, especially in thescene when Coretta convinces Malcolm to support her husband despite theirdifferences. That makes Malcolm’s role in the story the equivalent of whatliterary critics would call afoil—a supporting character (or other element of a text) who exists to shedlight on the main character through comparisons and contrasts.

That’s unquestionablythe case for Malcolm’s role in Selma, but I would also add this: Malcolmand Coretta’s conversation is one of many scenes in the film where multipleAfrican American characters discuss strategy, usually without any whitecharacters present; indeed, I would argue that the majority of the movie’sscenes feature such conversations. (Including the best scene by far and one ofmy favorites in 21st century cinema to date, between King and the youngJohn Lewis; it doesn’t seem to be online at the moment, but is well worthseeking out.) This might seem like a given in a film about one of the keycollective actions of the Civil Rights Movement, but I’m pointing it out becauseI believe it was truly groundbreaking in 2014, and is still a rarity (althoughother recent films such as Rustin[2023] have extended the tradition). Even the subject of yesterday’s post, SpikeLee’s Malcolm X biopic, due to its epic scope and multiple throughlines doesn’tmake such conversations a central element. Which means that even though Malcolm’sappearance in Selma is a brief one, it’s also groundbreaking in itscinematic depiction of his strategic thinking within the movement and inconversation with other movement leaders—making this a meaningful cameo to besure.

LastMalcolmStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Representations or other sides of Malcolm X you’d highlight?

May 21, 2025: Malcolm X’s 100th: Lee’s Film

[May 19th marks the100th birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. So thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural representations of Malcolm,leading up to a special weekend post on what we can learn from Malcolm here in2025!]

Threeinteresting contexts for Spike Lee’s epic 1992 biopic.

1)     A Long-Gestating Script: One of my favoritethings about writing this blog is how much I learn from researching just aboutevery post, even on subjects about which I have some starting point knowledge(which isn’t always the case, to be clear). Case in point: I had no idea thatthe original screenplay on which Lee based his film had been written, or atleast started, in the late 1960s, by none other than James Baldwin (collaboratingwith the formerly blacklisted screenwriter ArnoldPerl). Baldwin was never quite able to crack the code of adapting Malcolm’sautobiography into a screenplay, and the project subsequently passed through anumber of other talented hands, from DavidMamet to DavidBradley among others. But when Lee took over as the film’s director (moreon that in a moment), it was Baldwin and Perl’sscreenplay to which he returned, and so this 1990s film truly had 1960sroots.

2)     An Alternative Director: If that long-gestatingscript was one reason why it look a good while to make Malcolm X,another was that a different Hollywood director was initially attached: NormanJewison, who had made Inthe Heat of the Night (1967) among many other acclaimed films over hislong career. A number of African American artists and critics, including SpikeLee himself, protestedthat move, however, arguing that a Black filmmaker should be the one todirect this marquee project. Producer MarvinWorth (who had been attached to the project since the days of Baldwin andPerl’s initial screenplay) ultimately agreed and asked Jewison to step down infavor of Lee, but it’s interesting to think about what version of the filmJewison might have made—and we have some indications of an answer when we lookat the civil rights film Jewison made with star Denzel Washington later in thedecade, TheHurricane (1999). At the very least, the two films make for aninteresting pairing!

3)     An Interesting Request: In any case, Lee diddirect the film, and the result (while to my mind a bit long and meandering attimes) is an impressive and important biopic, featuring a career highlight performancefrom Denzel (which is a competitive category to be sure). Shortly before thefilm was due to be released in late 1992, Lee put out a controversialrequest that students skip school to attend screenings (and that adultstake the day off from work, but the school idea received more pushback). As aneducator and a parent, I understand why people might have resisted the idea;but as an educator and a parent, I also agree with Lee that education and developmenttake multiple forms, and that cultural works have an important role to play inthose processes. Hell, my entire elementary school missed class for an assemblywhere we watched the “Thriller” music video/short film (true story); and whileI enjoyed those dancing zombies like everyone one, I’d say the best cinematicrepresentation to date of Malcolm X is a slightly more worthy reason to miss school!

NextMalcolmStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Representations or other sides of Malcolm X you’d highlight?

May 20, 2025: Malcolm X’s 100th: An Opera

[May 19th marks the100th birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. So thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural representations of Malcolm,leading up to a special weekend post on what we can learn from Malcolm here in2025!]

On twodistinct and equally important ways to contextualize the opera X:The Life and Times of Malcolm X (1986).

As an Appendixto his collection SilentInterviews (1994; the Appendix begins on page 298 of that PDF), thenovelist and critic SamuelR. Delany included an extended November 1986 conversation with the composerAnthony Davis on the occasionof his then-new opera X. It’s a really wonderful and illuminatinginterview, and so in lieu of a full first paragraph I’d ask you to check thatout if you would, and then come on back for some further thoughts of mine.

Welcomeback! The starting point for Delany’s interview with Davis is a mutual recognitionthat Black people have long been subjects of operas, both aroundthe world and in the UnitedStates specifically, but very rarely have had the opportunity to compose suchcultural works (at least not ones that have seen the light of day). Perhaps thatgenuinely groundbreaking nature of Davis’s opera (which was co-written with twofamily members, as the libretto is by his and the story by his ) helps explain why it seems to have frustratinglyvanished in its own moment; certainly it helps explain why the opera has made atriumphantcomeback in the 2020s, although I shudder to think about its fate in the Ageof Trump. In any case, I have to believe that Malcolm would have loved that hewas the subject of such a controversial and crucial cultural work, even if hemight have sneered a bit at the upper middle class (if not upper class)pretensions of the genre overall (it seems that Malcolm sneeredat his co-author Alex Haley’s own such upbringing, anyway).

At thesame time, I think it’s vital that we not limit our lens on X to questionsof race and representation—there’s a reason, after all, why a good deal of the conversationbetween Delany and Davis focuses instead on the genre and traditions of opera,and on related questions of music, performance, staging, and more. I’ll admitto knowing very little about the apparently two-century history of American operas; and I have onlyrecently started to learn more about the pioneering African American composer WilliamGrant Still, who, along with his fellow and somewhat better-rememberedcomposer ScottJoplin, penned groundbreaking operas in the early 20th century. (Iwould add another groundbreaking early 20th century work, Zitkala-Ša’sSunDance Opera [1913], to that list as well.) All of which is to say, for thoseAmericans—and I would count myself in this unfortunate category, at least untilvery recently—who see opera as an almost entirely foreign art form, there’s along and fascinating legacy of American opera to be recovered and restaged, andX: The Life and Times of Malcolm X deserves a prominent place in that pantheon. 

NextMalcolmStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Representations or other sides of Malcolm X you’d highlight?

May 19, 2025: Malcolm X’s 100th: The Autobiography

[May 19th marks the100th birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. So thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural representations of Malcolm, leadingup to a special weekend post on what we can learn from Malcolm here in 2025!]

On the inevitablelimits of autobiography, and why this one is especially vital nonetheless.

Forwhatever reason I haven’t written a lot in this space about TheAutobiography of Malcolm X (1965), but I have dedicated a number ofposts to the genreof life writing overall, and I hope every time I’ve done so I’ve made clearhow much mythmakingis inevitably part of such texts. From St.Augustine to RichardWright, BenFranklin to JamesFrey, and everywhere in between, any act of autobiographical writing—while withoutquestion engaged with identity in real and meaningful ways—entails a good bitof storytelling, of the crafting of a narrative that (like all narratives)features choices of what is included and what is excluded, what is emphasized andwhat is minimized, and perhaps most of all what is intended for an audience andfor what reasons. None of which is meant as a criticism necessarily, but Iwould be highly critical of anyone who argued or implied that in reading an autobiographicalwork we are definitively learning about the life or identity of the person inquestion—which doesn’t mean we can’t learn such things from them (and lots ofother things), just that we do so as we always do as readers of a text, throughanalysis and interpretation and critical engagement.

All of whichis not only true of, but also in one important way exacerbated in, MalcolmLittle’s autobiographical book. Because despite its title the Autobiographyisn’t exactly a piece of autobiographical writing—the young AfricanAmerican journalist and future novelist Alex Haley served as itsghostwriter, authoring the book out of a seriesof conversations and collaborations with Malcolm over the last few years ofMalcolm’s life. That Haley would go on to write his own very complicated pieceof autobiographically inspired fiction, Roots(1976), adds one further layer to the questions of the Autobiography’sgenre. But even without that additional detail, the very nature of the Autobiography’sdual and in atleast some important ways dueling authorships—a subject that, to hiscredit, Haley did not shy away from addressing, especially in theEpilogue he appended to the book when it was published a few months after Malcolm’sassassination—forces any reader to think critically about what is and is notpart of the book, about the motivations of each of these distinct authors and voices,about all the layers that are inevitably part of the genre but that, again, aretaken to another level by this uniquely composed autobiographical work.

So maybewe can’t be sure that we’re learning precise or at least simple truths aboutMalcolm X when we read his Autobiography—but along with all the thingswe can still learn about the man and his perspective, identity, and story, thereare of course lots of other meaningful lessons to be drawn from this monumentalwork. I think it’s quite telling, for example, that when Eric Holder was endinghis tenure as the first African American U.S. Attorney General in early 2015, herecommended that “every American” read The Autobiography of Malcolm X.Holder makes that case through Malcolm’s own evolutions, arguing, “To see thetransition that that man went through…from petty criminal, to a person who was severelyand negatively afflicted by race, to somebody who ultimately saw the humanityin all of us.” I would agree, but I would also complement that perspective withan emphasis on the layers of American history that the book forces us to examine,many of them the worst of our prejudices and discriminations and whitesupremacist violences and their effects. Malcolm’s own voice throughout hispublic activist life demanded that we look long and hard at the worst of us,and I believe his complicated and crucial book does the same.

NextMalcolmStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Representations or other sides of Malcolm X you’d highlight?

May 17-18, 2025: What’s Next

Followingup the week’s semester reflections series, here are a few upcoming things—teaching-wiseand otherwise—I’m looking forward to!

1)     A Return to Honors Lit: I’ve got lots ofupcoming classes of course, including one over the summer (a quick version of AmericanLit II) and the usual balance of things in the Fall (a couple First-YearWritings and another Am Lit II, for example). But one for the Fall semester forwhich I’m especially excited is my return to our HonorsLiterature Seminar, after a number of years where other folks have taughtthat course. I gave brief thought to reinventing the syllabus a bit (somethingwe should always at least consider I believe), but at the end of the day I can’timagine a more relevant Fall 2025 subject than Americain the Gilded Age, and I’m really excited to work with another group of ouramazing Honors students to read and discuss and analyze literary, cultural, andhistorical texts from that all-too-familiar era.

2)     A Public Scholarly Website: When it comes tomy own scholarly work, I remain uncertain about when and whether I’ll return tobook-length projects, at least in writing—I’m definitely interested in another “season”of my podcast, as I discussed in that post (and for which I’d still lovesuggestions!). But I’m also excited about another scholarly project, one mywife and I have begun discussing: creating a public scholarly website that canhost each of our work in multiple forms, but also and especially serve as acommunity that can both share others’ existing work and offer folks a placewhere they can create and publish new work. Much more on that to follow, butplease let me know, here or byemail, if you have interest, ideas, anything you’d like to contribute tothat evolving conversation!

3)     Two Sons in College!: Do I need to say more?!Actually, I definitely do, but I’m drafting this post before we have a definiteanswer about where my youngerson Kyle will end up, and I’ll add a further note once that’s settled. Butwhat I can say no matter what is that, sad as the thought makes me in some waysof course, I’m also really excited to have both boys be part of thesecommunities and conversations, and to be able to share here all the placestheir education and lives take them.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What’scoming up for you?

May 16, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: Student Tributes to Dad

[About halfwaythrough the Spring 2025 semester, . While that was of course the semester’s most defining moment,it also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching inrelationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve everknown. So for this semester reflections series, I want to highlight one momentfrom each class where I’d say I particularly felt my Dad’s presence.]

I didteach one other course this semester, an Accelerated Online section of The ShortStory that started after Spring Break. But in lieu of a post focused on thatclass, I wanted to use this last post in the series to highlight a few Blueskythreads where folks—many of them former students—shared tributes to my Dad.

Thisoriginal one: https://bsky.app/profile/americanstudier.bsky.social/post/3ljgoh56ixk2y

Thisfollow-up: https://bsky.app/profile/americanstudier.bsky.social/post/3ljkjgk2xbs2b

and thisone from his former grad student Ryan Cordell: https://bsky.app/profile/ryancordell.org/post/3ljgpguto3224

He wasloved, as much as a teacher and mentor as he was as a husband, father,grandfather, and man.

Previewpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Springsemester reflections you’d share?

May 15, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: Graduate Research Methods

[About halfwaythrough the Spring 2025 semester, . While that was of course the semester’s most defining moment,it also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching inrelationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve everknown. So for this semester reflections series, I want to highlight one momentfrom each class where I’d say I particularly felt my Dad’s presence.]

Thissemester featured myfirst-ever section of our Graduate Research Methods course, but I did modelthat new syllabus on two courses I’ve taught a number of times: Introto Literary Theory (another Grad class) and Approachesto English Studies (an undergrad one). Which meant we talked here and thereabout the approach/theory known as psychoanalytical, an approach that definedmy Dad’s early career (his dissertation/firstbook was a psychoanalytical reading of James Fenimore Cooper) and thatcontinued to inform his later interests in topicslike authorship. I’ll admit to being far less of a devotee of this approachthan my Dad, but I’ll also admit that when we returned fully to this class’sconversations after his passing, I made sure to think through when and howpsychoanalytical analysis could help, beyond what I would have been likely todo in another semester. For example, I think Dad’s ideas about the anxieties ofauthorship and audience have a lot to tell us about Langston Hughes, the poeton whom our middle unit in this course focused. I promise to keep an open mindabout this theoretical approach going forward, Dad.

Last reflectiontomorrow,

Ben

PS. Springsemester reflections you’d share?

May 14, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: First-Year Writing II

[About halfwaythrough the Spring 2025 semester, . While that was of course the semester’s most defining moment,it also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching inrelationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve everknown. So for this semester reflections series, I want to highlight one momentfrom each class where I’d say I particularly felt my Dad’s presence.]

I’m suremy Dad taught First-Year Writing in his early years at the University ofVirginia, but because of the way that institution and English Department work,overall and in terms of seniority and so on, I believe it had been many manyyears since he had done so (he taught at Uva for 45 years, so I do mean manymany!). As a result, I certainly connect my Literature courses and teaching tohim more fully than I do my Writing sections (which I have at least one of, andoften as this semester two of, every semester). But when I returned to my FYWclassrooms on the Thursday of the week he passed, I had the chance to pay anovert tribute to my Dad and his work: as part of a unit on analyzing multimediatexts we read a MatthewZoller Seitz article on the “Magical Negro” stereotype, and so I got toshare with the students my Dad’s excellentanalysis of “Tomming” as both a precursor to that stereotype and a way toanalyze it in cultural works. And then we watched the Key & Peele sketch “Magical Negro Fight,”because it’s very relevant to that conversation but also because my Dad reallyloved all things Key & Peele. I can’t say exactly which of these momentsfelt most linked to my Dad, because in truth they all were, thoughtfully andhumorously and movingly.

Next reflectiontomorrow,

Ben

PS. Springsemester reflections you’d share?

May 13, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: American Literature II

[About halfwaythrough the Spring 2025 semester, . While that was of course the semester’s most defining moment,it also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching inrelationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve everknown. So for this semester reflections series, I want to highlight one momentfrom each class where I’d say I particularly felt my Dad’s presence.]

Continuingthe thread from yesterday’s post, the other class I taught on that Mondaymorning was American Literature II, the second-half American Lit survey. Thatday we were located close in time to Langston Hughes, amidst our Unit on Modernismand the Early 20th Century, and specifically were on day three (of four)with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (we also briefly added in asupplemental text, SherwoodAnderson’s “Hands,” as we often do in a survey course). That discussioncovered a number of turning points in the novel, including the extended flashbackin Chapter VI where Nick Carraway narrates the moment when young James Gatzabandons his prior self and heritage to create the new identity of Jay Gatsby. Andas we talked about it, I couldn’t help remembering one of the (many) argumentsmy Dad and I have had about literature over the decades, in this case aboutwhether Gatz’s parents/heritage are implied to be ethnic (read: non-white) in anyway. My Dad thought no, I thought yes; as usual I don’t know that I shifted hisperspective at all, but as always I know that the debate sharpened my ownreading and analysis. Not sure there’s much in my ideas that he didn’t contributeto one way or another!

Next reflectiontomorrow,

Ben

PS. Springsemester reflections you’d share?

May 12, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: Major American Authors of the 20th Century

[About halfwaythrough the Spring 2025 semester, . While that was of course the semester’s most defining moment,it also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching inrelationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve everknown. So for this semester reflections series, I want to highlight one momentfrom each class where I’d say I particularly felt my Dad’s presence.]

We lost myDad on a Sunday morning; on Monday morning, I taught two American Literaturecourses over Google Meet. I hope that doesn’t seem insensitive or unfeeling; Iassure you it was quite the opposite, not least because I was teaching at myDad’s desk in his study, with his books and papers and so much else of hisamazing career and life around me. In Major American we were beginning our secondweek with Langston Hughes, and discussing in particular his stunning book-lengthpoem/collection “Montage of aDream Deferred” (1951). At the heart of that collection, in its literalcenter but also I would argue its philosophical core, is “Themefor English B,” one of Hughes’s most explicitly autobiographical poems anda text focused on an English classroom and assignment. As we talked about “Theme”during that class, and especially as I reflected for a bit on the limits andthe possibilities of teaching and writing alike before we move to another focaltext, I certainly felt like my Dad, a lifelong writer and teacher and criticaloptimist about all things literary, was there in the conversation with us.

Next reflectiontomorrow,

Ben

PS. Springsemester reflections you’d share?