Rare clip of James Baldwin debating William Buckley on “The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro” at Cambridge University in 1965. (Among other things, Baldwin draws parallels between South Africa, Algeria and the United States.)
The media blog that is not about famine, Bono, or Barack Obama. For that, go to Newsweek. Frequent contributors are media expert Brett Davidson; academics Sean Jacobs (he started AIAC), Neelika Jayawardane, Kathryn Mathers, Marissa Moorman, Lily Saint, Melissa Levin and Dan Moshenberg; writer and health advocate Caitlin L. Chandler; filmmaker Dylan Valley; writer and academic Abdourahman Waberi; and graduate students Boima Tucker, Anni Lyngskaer, Sophia Azeb, Tom Devriendt, Loren Lynch, curator and filmmaker Basia Lewandowska Cummings, writer and journalist Elliot Ross, writer Orlando Reade; Hinda Talhaoui; and Mikko Kapanen. Pre-August 2009 posts are archived here.
I love showing this to my students – it always inspires one of those rare honest discussions that makes me remember why teaching is just as rewarding as my academic work.
This is fantastic! One of the reasons why I love AIAC! Sure beats wikileaks..James B delivers a devastating indictment with great style and control. Its amazing that he was so eloquent and acute in both print and speech. Can’t think of any other person who compares in terms of delivery on both on the page and in full speech.
If you read the prose of soldiers during the American Civil War writing home to their families you will be astounded by its elegance. Listening the eloquence of both Baldwin and Buckley here is really a treat. Today I know of no one who speaks or writes with such skill. I am too young to be a grumpy nostalgic but it is hard to find a rhetorical medium in which we moderns currently excel.