“THE AUTODIDACT PROJECT”
by Ralph Dumain

Black Studies, Music, America vs Europe
STUDY GUIDE

ON THIS SITE

Jazz & Other Musicians: Philosophy & Testimony

• Duke Ellington: "We, Too, Sing 'America'"
• Duke Ellington Communicates Beyond Category
• Duke Ellington Komunikas ‘Preter Kategorio’, Esperanto translation by R. Dumain
• John Coltrane on Black Music and Affirmative Philosophy
• "Skies of America" by Ornette Coleman
• What Improvising Musicians Do by William Hooker
• 'Anthony Braxton: The Third Millennial Interview with Mike Heffley':
  Extracts, with Commentary by Ralph Dumain
• "Compared to What" by Eugene McDaniels, as performed by Les McCann
• Mixed Bag poem by Richie Havens
• Nina Simone: A Personal Tribute
• The Philosophy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk
• Big Bill Broonzy vs Folk Ideology
• Eric Dolphy Speaks of Music (with sound clip link)
• Discipline 27 by Sun Ra
• Speevy, The American Jazz Singer (photograph) by Erwin Blumenfeld
• Clifford Jordan: Glass Bead Games: Hermann Hesse

On Jazz and Black Music

• Anthony Braxton: Selected Bibliography
• Black Music & the American Surrealists: A Bibliography
• The Theory & Practice of John Coltrane by Ralph Dumain
• The Dialectics and Aesthetics of Freedom: Hegel, Slavery and 19th Century African American Music, PhD dissertation by Greg Harrison, selections, with an introduction by R. Dumain
• Stanley Crouch & Me: Correspondence & Commentary by Ralph Dumain
• Promise of Victory: A Note on the Negro Spiritual by A. L. Morton
• 'Anthony Braxton: The Third Millennial Interview with Mike Heffley':
  Extracts, with Commentary by Ralph Dumain
• The Jazz Avant-Garde, Mysticism & Society: Meaning, Method & the Young Hegelians by R. Dumain
• Dialectic is Cool
• “Poetry, Jazz & Freedom” by Réne Ménil, translated by Keith Holloman
• "La Socia Enhavo de l'Ĵazmuziko" [The Social Content of Jazz Music; in Esperanto], de Roland Levreaud
• Niels Bohr & Louis Armstrong (photograph & comment)

Black Americanism

• Duke Ellington: "We, Too, Sing 'America'"
• “Bonds of Brotherhood” by Paul Robeson
• "Skies of America" by Ornette Coleman

America vs. Europe: The New World & the Old

• Romare Bearden on Black American Culture vs. the European Avant-Garde
• André Breton Out of His Element, by Edwin Denby
• Borges’s Monsters & Ars Combinatoria by Lois Parkinson Zamora
• C.L.R. James on West Indian Writers vs. T.S. Eliot & Jean-Paul Sartre: the New World & the Old
• Simone de Beauvoir on literature, metaphysics, the American novel, & Richard Wright
• Niels Bohr & Louis Armstrong (photograph & comment)

Theoretical & Historical Perspectives

• Ralph Ellison on the Hidden Political Meaning of Cultural Symbolism
• Richard Wright Defines The Outsider
• Simplex, Complex, & Multiplexity according to Samuel R. Delaney
• Letter to Ludwig Feuerbach from Ottilie Assing about Frederick Douglass
• Martin Luther King, Jr. & G.W.F. Hegel
• “Martin Luther King’s Debt to Hegel” by John Ansbro
• John A. Williams on Martin Luther King, Jr. & the Black church
• Adolph L. Reed, Jr. on Organicism, Authoritarianism, Clericalism, & Black Politics
• For René Ménil, Caribbean Surrealist-Philosopher (Review) by Ralph Dumain
• "Bonny Delany" [on science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany) by Ralph Dumain
• Lest We Forget—The Hidden History of the African-American Autodidact:
  A Belated Tribute to Black History Month (2000) by Ralph Dumain
• Black History Month 2001: On Intellectual Infrastructures & Independent Learning by Ralph Dumain
• 100 Years of C.L.R. James (4 January 2001—James's 100th birthday) by Ralph Dumain
• Individual Identity, Historical Meaning, and the Unknown Autodidact by Ralph Dumain
• Cultural Impasse & the Changing Forms of Ideality by Ralph Dumain
• The Traditional Canon vs. Multiculturalism in the Literary Profession: A Sterile Debate by Ralph Dumain
• Cornel West's Evasion of Philosophy, Or, Richard Wright's Revenge by Ralph Dumain
• Cornel West and Marxism: An Incomplete Review by R. Dumain
• Pragmatism Blues by R. Dumain
• Black mystic in hyperspace by R. Dumain
• "Religion and the New African American Intellectuals" by Norm R. Allen, Jr.
• C.L.R. James: A Revolutionary Vision for the 20th Century by Anna Grimshaw, Parts One, Two, Three
• Albert Einstein and Black Americans
• From “Superman” to Man by J. A. Rogers
  • Index
  • Race, Equality of Intellect, & the History of Civilization
  • Religion and the Negro
• "A Hymn to the Peoples" by W. E. B. Du Bois
• W. E. B. Du Bois on Religion
• Du Bois on Religion (Contents), ed. by Phil Zuckerman
• Lorraine Hansberry's Humanism
• The Negro Mood: Ethos (quotes) by Lerone Bennett, Jr.
• "The Organized Educational Activities of Negro Literary Societies, 1828-1846" by Dorothy B. Porter, parts one and two
• Remembering the Past and Forgetting Yourself, Or, Why Oprah Is Not an Abolitionist by Ralph Dumain
• William Pickens: Who’s Who in Colored America
• "The Russian Jew and The American Negro" by John D. Swain (1906)
• Harold Cruse’s Attack on Jewish Communists: Comment by Sid Resnick
• Martin Sostre in Court: On Hostility, Paranoia, & Psychiatric Abuse
• Lloyd L. Brown Talks to Mary Helen Washington: Writing the Collective Narrative (Route One Interview)
• The Jazz Avant-Garde, Mysticism & Society: Meaning, Method & the Young Hegelians by R. Dumain
• Ishmael Reed, William Blake, and the '60s According to Shamoon Zamir by R. Dumain
• "Schomburg: Cultural Education & Empowerment" by John Anthony Lugo
• Alienation in American Society (Selections) by Fritz Pappenheim [refugee scholar] (et al)
• "The Little Blue Books in the War on Bigotry and Bunk" by Mark Scott
• Fortune, Matter, and Providence: A Study of Ancius Severinus Boethius and Giordano Bruno by William T. Fontaine
• “The Mind and Thought of the Negro of the United States as Revealed in Imaginative Literature, 1876-1940” by William T. Fontaine
• Reflections on Segregation, Desegregation, Power and Morals (Contents) by William T. Fontaine
• “The Failure of the Negro Intellectual” by E. Franklin Frazier
• Afrofuturism — the exhibit & the book: a partial review by R. Dumain
• AfroBS Dropping (review of Afrofuturism Rising) by R. Dumain

Black Studies

• A Memorial Tribute to Bill French (includes links) by R. Dumain
• "Schomburg: Cultural Education & Empowerment" by John Anthony Lugo
• “Crisis in Philosophy: The Black Presence” (1974) by William R. Jones
• Black Folk and the Struggle in ‘Philosophy’ by Lucius T. Outlaw
• “On the Contributions of John McClendon and Stephen Ferguson to the APA Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience” by R. Dumain
• Notes on Bruce Kuklick’s Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine by Ralph Dumain
• “The Mind and Thought of the Negro of the United States as Revealed in Imaginative Literature, 1876-1940” by William T. Fontaine
• “The Failure of the Negro Intellectual” by E. Franklin Frazier

Black American Literature

• The Book of American Negro Poetry, James Weldon Johnson, ed.: Contents: 1922 & 1931
• Anthology of American Negro Literature, edited by V. F. Calverton [Preface & Contents]
• “I Want to Die While You Love Me” by Georgia Douglas Johnson
• "Strong Men" by Sterling A. Brown
• "The Negro Mother" by Langston Hughes, with a personal note
• "Goodbye Christ" by Langston Hughes
• Richard Wright Defines The Outsider
• Richard Wright’s Outsider, Negroes & Flying Saucers
• Richard Wright's The Outsider (1953): Selected Quotes
• Richard Wright: Letter to Mike Gold, May 1940 (Excerpt): On Bigger & Hitler
• Richard Wright on Albert Camus’ The Stranger
• “Negreto” (Esperanto translation of excerpt from Black Boy) de Richard Wright
• "Jitterbugs" by LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka
• "Hegel" by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)
• “Esperanto” & “Libretto for the Republic of Liberia” (excerpts): poems by Melvin B. Tolson
• "Gold Is The Shade Esperanto" by Margaret Danner
• "Ars Poetica #17: First Afro-American Esperantist" by Elizabeth Alexander
• Simplex, Complex, & Multiplexity according to Samuel R. Delany

On Black American Literature

• Negro Poetry in America by Lena Beatrice Morton [Excerpts & Summary]
• “The Dilemma of the Negro Novelist in the United States” (1948) [Excerpts] by Chester Himes
• James Baldwin Revisited (1): Prolegomena by Ralph Dumain
• James Baldwin Revisited (2): Go Tell It on the Mountain by Ralph Dumain
• Ishmael Reed: Literary Ambulance Chaser? by Ralph Dumain
• Ishmael Reed, William Blake, and the '60s According to Shamoon Zamir by R. Dumain
• Review of Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo by R. Dumain
• “On the Significance of The Signifying Monkey by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” by R. Dumain
• Ash of Stars: One half of a dialogue on Samuel R. Delany by R. Dumain
• An Enigmatic Historical Moment in Fiction: Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist (Book Review) by Ralph Dumain
• “Birth of a Black Nation, or Death Throes of a Culture?” [Review of Birth of a Nation: A Comic Novel by Aaron McGruder & Reginald Hudlin, illustrated by Kyle Baker] by Ralph Dumain
• August Wilson on Jorge Luis Borges
• Lloyd L. Brown Talks to Mary Helen Washington: Writing the Collective Narrative (Route One Interview)

Film Reviews

• Bulworth: Revolution Hollywood Style reviewed by Ralph Dumain
• Hyenas by Djibril Diop Mambety reviewed by Ralph Dumain
• Touki Bouki by Djibril Diop Mambety reviewed by Ralph Dumain

African Studies

• African Philosophy, Politics, and the Division of Labor by Ralph Dumain
• The Dead End of African Philosophy: Which Way Out? by Ralph Dumain
• Against Irrationalism and Particularism, Or, The Fake Issue of "Western Mathematics" by Ralph Dumain
• Inside 'The Black Insider', Or, War and Literature: The Writing of Dambudzo Marechera by Ralph Dumain
• Book Review: Between Tides by V.Y. Mudimbe by Ralph Dumain
• Hyenas by Djibril Diop Mambety reviewed by Ralph Dumain
• Touki Bouki by Djibril Diop Mambety reviewed by Ralph Dumain
• "Bill French & Onitsha Market Literature" by Kurt Thometz
• "High Life & Mad English": Kurt Thometz reviewed by John Strausbaugh
• Moore Crossey on Walter Goldwater, Bill French, & Onitsha Market Literature
• The Story of This Book (Preface to The Savage Hits Back) by Julius Lips
• Albert Schweitzer—An African Image by Ndabaningi Sithole
• ‘On the "Not Necessarily Atheist" Nature of Kwame Nkrumah's Philosophical Consciencism’ by Alexander Wooten

Bibliographies & Study Guides (Links)

• Richard Wright
• Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Lived Underground”: Annotated Bibliography
• Charles Johnson, Black American Philosopher & Novelist: Select Bibliography
• Dr. Stanton Lawrence Wormley, Sr. (1909-1993)
• African American / Black Autodidacticism, Education, Intellectual Life
• Black / African-American / African Atheism (part of atheism web guide)
• Black Freethinkers & Other Intellectuals (external links)
• First Universal Races Congress, London, July 26-29, 1911: Selected Bibliography
• The Afro-German Connection: Web Guide & Bibliography
• A Memorial Tribute to Bill French
• Anthony Braxton: Selected Bibliography
• Black Music & the American Surrealists: A Bibliography
• Afrofuturism
• Flying Saucers & Afrofuturism — Counternarratives Study Guide
• 100 Years of C.L.R. James
• Dostoevsky’s Underground, Ideology, Reception: A Very Select Bibliography
• American Philosophy
• Literature, Race, & Money

Poems by Ralph Dumain

• Homebody without a Home (for Rita Dove)
• Sparking My Pain (poem against ghettocentrism)
• Albert Ayler
• Haiku for Richard Wright
• Upon the First Snow-Storm of the Season: Blake & Coltrane in Esperanto

Writings about/in Esperanto & related matters

• Volapük in the Black Press, 1888
• Volapuk (Chicago Defender, 1911)
• William Pickens: Who’s Who in Colored America
• William Pickens on Esperanto in The Voice of the Negro (1906)
• “Let’s Be Human,” subheading ‘A Common Language’ by Harry Fleishman
• “Esperanto” & “Libretto for the Republic of Liberia” (excerpts): poems by Melvin B. Tolson
• "Gold Is The Shade Esperanto" by Margaret Danner
• "Ars Poetica #17: First Afro-American Esperantist" by Elizabeth Alexander
• "La Socia Enhavo de l' Ĵazmuziko" [The Social Content of Jazz Music] by Roland Levreaud
• “Improvizado” de Radosław Nowakowski
• "Misisipi" de Lejb Malaĥ (1894-1936) (Antaŭparolo & Biografio)
• Anonco pri Misisipi (with English translation)
• Lidia Zamenhof: The Bahá’í Faith, Esperanto, Politics, Anti-Semitism, Black Americans, & the USA
       (Excerpts from Lidia by Wendy Heller)
• "Miguel A. Caycedo: Poeto de Negreco" (Miguel Ángel Caicedo Mena)
• C.L.R. James & Usona Kulturo by R. Dumain
• Afrikanaj Usonanoj por Humanismo by R. Dumain
• “Dialogo kun Afrika Esperantisto” Dialogas R. Dumain & D-ro Akwasi Osei
• "Al Josephine Baker" [To Josephine Baker] by Poul Thorsen
• Kvar Poemoj de Langston Hughes, translated by Carlos A. Castrillón
• "Adiaŭ Kristo" [Goodbye Christ] de Langston Hughes, translated by R. Dumain
• Observo: Negraj Poetoj en Ameriko [Recenzo de “L.”]
• “Observo: Van Vechten: Negra Ĉielo” [recenzo]
• “Nigraĵoj” de Georgo Verda (Izrael Lejzerowicz)
• “Negreto” [Esperanto translation of excerpt from Black Boy] by Richard Wright
• "Ligoj de Frateco" [Bonds of Brotherhood] by Paul Robeson, translated by R. Dumain
• Duke Ellington Komunikas ‘Preter Kategorio’ [Duke Ellington Communicates Beyond Category] Esperanto translation from Ellington by R. Dumain
• "Buboj" [Jitterbugs] by LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, translated by R. Dumain (1/20/10)
• "Laŭ Afrika Melodio" by R. Dumain
• Malfermu la Sonon (por Miles Davis, 1959) / Open Up the Sound (for Miles Davis, 1959) by R. Dumain
• "Je Unua Neĝoŝtormo Ĉisezona" [Upon the First Snow-Storm of the Season: Blake & Coltrane in Esperanto] poem by R. Dumain
• "Por Hilton Ruiz, Portorikana Pianisto" by Ralph Dumain
• Works by (and about) people of African descent in Esperanto translation: bibliography in progress (1989) by Ralph Dumain

ON OTHER SITES

• On C.L.R. James's 'On the Spiritual' by Ralph Dumain
• Postscript on C.L.R. James's "On the Spiritual" by Ralph Dumain
• The Crisis and the Triumph by C.L.R. James
• The C.L.R. James Institute: Texts
• Anthony Braxton: The Third Millennial Interview with Mike Heffley
• Samuel R. Delaney Information
• Samuel R. Delaney as a semi-precious stone
• Black Freethought discussion group (created 2009.02.06) on "Atheist Nexus" networking site
• Granda nigra bona viro [“Big Black Good Man”] (1957) de Richard Wright (Esperanto translation)