William Van Deburg
4131 HC White (608) 263-3470 (608) 263-7198 wlvandeb@wisc.edu
Profile:
M.A. Michigan State University 1971
B.A. Western Michigan University 1970Hoodlums: Black Villains and Social Bandits in American Life
Utilizing data drawn from traditional sources as well as from Hollywood films, song lyrics, and pulp fiction, Hoodlums (University of Chicago Press, 2004) probes the historical connection which European-Americans have made between physical and spiritual darkness. It also demonstrates how African-Americans have worked to reconceptualize resulting stereotypes through the celebration of colorfully insurgent figures known as social bandits. This interrogation of cultural projection and reception reveals that both the villainization of blacks and the valorization of black villains have contributed importantly to our nation’s inability to transform racial relationships. Archetypal figures examined include black slaveholders and frontier outlaws; mobsters, youth gang members, and prison inmates; blaxploitation film stars and hip-hop musicians.
Black Camelot: African-American Culture Heroes in Their Times, 1960 - 1980
Black Camelot (University of Chicago Press, 1997) examines the creation and reception of four distinctive popular cultural embodiments of the African-American heroic: the competitive athlete; blues, jazz, and soul musician; urban "badman"; and "super hero" detective. Van Deburg maintains that these pop culture icons are more than mere entertainers or celebrities. Mirroring the folk soul, they serve as activist role models and work to discredit harmful stereotypes. Unique, race-specific symbols of self- definition and empowerment who nevertheless are cheered on by significant constituencies within the mainstream, the black heroes "translate experience" within a symbolic universe and are said to have a key role to play in the mediation of contemporary cultural affairs.
New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement
And American Culture, 1965-1975
In New Day in Babylon (University of Chicago Press, 1992), Van Deburg offers a history of the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and analyzes its defining principles and continuing significance in American cultural affairs. Here, Black Power is conceptualized as a revolt rooted in African-American culture and in the psychologically liberating themes which perculated through all manner of activist expression during these tumultuous years. Individual chapters trace the movement's self-defining ethic as it coursed through politics and economics; language and clothing styles; popular music, literature, and drama.
Slavery & Race in American Popular Culture
An earlier study, Slavery & Race in American Popular Culture (University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), examines the works of numerous novelists, historians, poets, filmmakers, and dramatists in order to expose the cultural underpinnings of contemporary racial attitudes and divisions. Van Deburg's synthesis of race-specific images embedded in the popular culture reveals a persistent dichotomy between white- and black-authored representations of both black slavery and black humanity.
The Slave Drivers: Black Agricultural Labor Supervisors In the Antebellum south
In The Slave Drivers (Oxford University Press, 1988), Van Deburg provides a decidedly revisionist interpretation of the black plantation foremen of the antebellum South. Refuting unfavorable stereotypes of the black agricultural supervisors, the monograph holds that many drivers identified not with the white planters but with their fellow bondsmen. Consequently, these "men in the middle" were neither psychologically destroyed nor turned into sadistic oppressors by their difficult and tension-filled role as a member of the whites' supervisory elite.
Modern Black Nationalism:
From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan
Van Deburg's Modern Black Nationalism (New York University Press, 1997) is a 380 page documentary anthology which charts the richness and diversity of black nationalist belief and expression from the founding of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association to the present day. Among the 53 edited documents are selections from Mumia Abu-Jamal, Molefi Asante, Amiri Baraka, Eldridge Cleaver, Louis Farrakhan, Maulana Karenga, Elijah Muhammad, and Assata Shakur. Sixty pages of commentary provide context and historical background.
African American Nationalism
Part of the 30-volume Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience series, this online resource (ProQuest, 2005) includes an 8,000 word introductory essay, some two dozen digitized journal articles, as well as a timeline, glossary, research bibliography, and links to an extensive multimedia library.
Selected Publications:
"Black Power in Sports,” in Black America: Zur Geschichte der Afro-Amerikaner, ed. Sophie Bade (dtv, 2004). Collection also contains chapters by Grace Hale, Vincent Harding, Robin Kelley, Albert Raboteau, and Tricia Rose.
“Black Power and Culture,” in The Civil Rights Movement, ed. Jack E. Davis(Blackwell, 2001). Collection also contains chapters by Adam Fairclough, Raymond Gavins, Hugh Davis Graham, Patricia Sullivan, and Thomas Sugrue.
Villains, Demons, and Social Bandits: White Fear of the Black Cultural Revolution,” in Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle, ed. Brian Ward (University Press of Florida, 2001). Collection also contains essays by Julian Bond, David Chappell, Allison Graham, Trudier Harris, and Scot French.
Forthcoming Work: "African-American Activism in the West," in Speaking Out with Many Voices, ed. Heather Ann Thompson (Prentice Hall); "White Conspiracies Against Black Empowerment," in Cahiers de Recherches Afro-Americaines (Presses Universitaires Francois-Rabelais)
Teaching/Research Interests: Race in American History
Popular Culture/Film Studies
Black Power MovementCourses Taught : Afro-American Studies 231:
Introduction to Afro-American History
Afro-American Studies 303:
Blacks, Film and Society
Afro-American Studies 467:
Slavery in the American South
Afro-American Studies 635:
Afro-American History to 1900Other: Additional biographical data is listed in Contemporary Authors (1993) and Directory of American Scholars (2001)
