When you're in grad school, you end up doing a dissert on which effectively is contrasting black immigrants with the experience of african americans. So that lends though, when you're trying to find an adviser to sponsor your dissertation, it sounds like nobody wants to get on board with that exploration. Thus there is a deep anxiety and discomfort dealing with the tensions and differences within the black world in America. This is comfortable for black folk outside of the united states, but within the context of white supremacy.
Born in the short-lived West African country of Biafra, Louis Chude-Sokei and his mom fled the country during the war that would take the life of his father, a figure of such great reverence in the country that it would create a set of expectations about who Louis was and should be that would follow him well into his adult life. Landing first in Jamaica, where his mother was from, then eventually making their way through DC, to LA, he spent his life, as the line from the Bowie song, Space Oddity, goes, “floating in a most peculiar way.”
That song, in fact, has been a bit of a lifelong obsession for Louis, along with Bowie and his music and, in fact, it’s the name of his moving new memoir, Floating in a Most Peculiar Way (https://amzn.to/36NqRZh), his evolving exploration of everything from identity and race to science fiction and music. Louis is now Professor of English at Boston University where he directs the African American Studies Program. He is also the author of influential and award-winning scholarly work and his writing appears in national and international venues, and he is the Editor in Chief of The Black Scholar, the premier journal of Black Studies in America.
You can find Louis Chude-Sokei at:
Website : https://www.bu.edu/afam/profile/louis-chude-sokei/
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