The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness

How has the transnational and intercultural nature of Black Atlantic expression facilitated and challenged discourses of racial authenticity?

Gilroy discusses Black Atlantic music extensively throughout the book. How does music fit into the overall discussion of the Black Atlantic?

Gilroy examines different political strategies and approaches that the Black Atlantic has used in the struggles against racial subordination (i.e. Black nationalism, Africentrism, Pan-Africanism). What role does the transnational and intercultural character of the Black Atlantic play in each one?

How is the memory of slavery deployed in Black expressive cultures and constructions of identity, and why does is it an important interpretive device?

What role does the concept of diaspora play in Black Atlantic political cultures, and how do its notions of sameness and difference connect to the political strategies of the Black Atlantic?

Gilroy discusses several figures embedded in white Western thought and producing a counterculture of modernity that challenges dominant Eurocentric notions of modernity. Choose one figure and explain how their doubleness contributes to their theory of modernity.

What role does transnationalism play in linking anti-racist struggles to other political struggles in the modern world?

Why is a reconceptualization of “tradition” necessary to more accurately understand the shape and strategies of the Black Atlantic?