Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Modes of Discourse

• Exposition
• Narrative

Loose Canons:Notes on the Culture Wars

Syntax: Longer sentences than most of his works.

Diction: More higher level vocabulary

Rhetorical Devices:

• "...our attempts to define a black American canon..." (ethos)
• "What is wrong with you people, our friends ask us in genuine passion and concern; after all, aren't we all just citizens of literature here?" (Rhetorical Question)

Background

Colored People: A Memoir

• Born September 16, 1950, in Keyser, West Virginia
• Graduated from Yale University in 1973 with a degree in history. He continued his education at Clare College.
• At the age of 30, Gates became one of the first scholars to be awarded the MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." Three years later, Cornell University granted him a tenured professorship.
• His friends called him “Skip”
• In 2009, Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Bibliography

Syntax: Normal sentences

Diction: Regular vocabulary with some high level.

Rhetorical Devices:

• "Like Joe Louis's fights, which my father still talks about as part of the fixed repertoire of stories that texture our lives. " (simile)
• To be black, to know black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling blackness... to experience a humanity..." (repetition)

The Signifying Monkey

Major Works

Cultural & Strong-willed

"Henry Louis Gates Jr. Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. <http://www.biography.com/people/henry-louis-gates-jr-9307556>.

"Presidential Lectures: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Excerpts." Presidential Lectures: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Excerpts. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. <http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/gates/excerpts/index.html>.

Staff, NPR. "Henry Louis Gates Jr.: A Life Spent Tracing Roots." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. <http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152273032/henry-louis-gates-jr-a-life-spent-tracing-roots>.

• The Signifying Monkey
• Colored People: A Memoir
• Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars

Syntax: Gates uses medium sized sentences to make sure the reader understands what he is saying.

Diction: More casually

Rhetorical Devices:

• "Thinking about the black concept of Signifying is a bit like stumbling unaware into a hall of mirrors..." (Imagery)
• ""I have encountered great difficulty...I have decided to signify...I have selected to write..."(Repetition, ethos)

"Attempts to derive theories about our literary tradition from the black tradition-a tradition, I might add, that must include black vernacular forms as well as written literary forms=are often greeted by our colleagues in traditional literature departments as misguided atempts to secede from a union which only recently, and with considerable kicking and screaming, has been forged. "