During our “Black Expatriate Writes in France” course, I had students journal and reflect upon their travels. I decided to keep a journal as well, and to this point, I have done three entires. The first one in Avignon took me a few days, because of various things, but I finally finished it before we left the city. Over the next few posts, I … Read More Avignon, France, May 8, 2023
+ Achille Mbembe, african american literature, algeria, france, the stone face, whiteness, william gardner smith
William Gardner Smith’s The Stone Face, as I have written about over the past few posts, revolves around the tension that Simeon feels about living in Paris as the Civil Rights Movement occurs back in the United States. Simeon’s conflict arose partly from Smith’s own experiences as an expatriate in France but also from the experiences of other African America expatriate writes in France … Read More The Illusion of Safety in William Gardner Smith’s “The Stone Face”
Recently, I’ve been looking at “whiteness” in William Gardner Smith’s The Stone Face. Today, I want to continue that discussion by looking further at Simeon’s interactions with Ahmed and Hossein, specifically on going to Hossein’s apartment in Paris. While Simeon, earlier in the novel, recognizes, through his “double perspective,” the atrocities that the French enact upon the Algerians, the movement through the, as Simeon … Read More “We’re not racist!”: France in William Gardner Smith’s “The Stone Face”
Interminable Rambling 