An Afrocentric Critique or the Locating of Dislocation

Abstract

Black Studies as Human Studies, a contemporary literary work identified as an African American Studies text, is the focus of this article. That drive to humanize suggested in the title of Joyce's book is maneuvered not by the “particular cultural voice of the composite African” but rather is guided conceptually by Eurocentric constructs. Joyce indicates awareness of the deep-seated ethnocentric European structure of human studies in the academy, where the formal bodies of academic knowledge attribute European knowledge as universal, but she works primarily within the confines of a European episteme. Joyce approaches literary criticism from a multitude of currents; her plan, however, is not approached Afrocentrically. Nor is her language along the lines of Afrocentric thought. Because of Joyce's training in the Western tradition and because there are elements of cultural dislocation in this work, Joyce appears to be bipositional, with tendencies toward a multi-positional place or location.