A Home Elsewhere: Reading African-American Classics in the Age of Obama

Stepto, author and Yale University Professor, debuts a work based on his lectures that juxtaposes the life-changing experiences of Barack Obama with prolific African-American writers, W. E. B. DuBois, Toni Morrison, and Frederick Douglass among them. Composed in two parts and six essays, Stepto begins by drawing from Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, to examine his struggle to find identity as a bi-racial American male while dealing with the absence of his black father. Stepto astutely relates Obama to Douglass by referencing Douglass's historical autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, from 1855, in which Douglass examined identity. Parallels are drawn between the two leaders; both struggled to come into their own as black men among people with little or no concept of black male identity. By juxtaposing Dreams from My Father with a variety of texts, including critical pieces on African-American literature, Stepto illuminates the lasting validity of these classics and their importance to our modern times. (May)