Opening the Gates to an Afro-Am Revival

Henry Louis Gates Jr. sits comfortably in his spanking new corner office with confidence.

Gates, chair of Afro-American Studies, says that not only is the new department location (above CVS on Mass. Ave) far more spacious, but it is also much closer to the intellectual center of Harvard.

And that's where Gates wants to be.

Gates arrives at the University this fall to resurrect the department and put it on its feet, after years of stagnation and failed efforts to recruit new faculty.

Gates spent this past spring and summer taking a "tutorial" in the Harvard system. "It was like going back to school," he says.

Among the teachers Gates credits are Women's Studies Chair Barbara E. Johnson, English Department Chair Philip J. Fisher and Geyser University Professor Henry Rosovsky.

But Gates, the DuBois professor of the humanities, doesn't seem to need a lot of instruction, he has the air of a natural leader. During his first hour-long interview with The Crimson late last week, the former Duke University scholar was personable and friendly. He is familiar with the media--he has appeared in hundreds of newspaper articles. Self-assured, almost cocky, Gates is in control.

Gates begins talking before the first question is asked, speaking about his goals for the semester and vision for the department. Gates has come for the opportunity to build.

"I see my task as recruiting the most sophisticated scholars in Afro-American Studies at work today," says Gates.

It is no small task for a department that little over a year ago extended offers to three of the nation's top scholars in Afro-Am and came up empty.

Gates' goal is to fill five more positions, with both junior and senior scholars, in the next five years. Gates wants to avoid "symbolic" or temporary appointments and instead focus on "serious and sustained scholarly appointments."

The most pressing appointment for Gates is a senior historian, a post left vacant with the death of DuBois Professor of History Nathaniel I. Huggins in the fall of 1989.

"History and literature are the twin pillars that any department will be built on," says Gates.

And Gates already has one of those pillars. In all, the department counts three senior professors and one junior professor who teach Afro-American literature. Those scholars, along with Women Studies' Johnson, make Harvard second only to Princeton University in the field, says Gates.

Princeton is the model. They, after all, are the ones to beat. Gates says that Princeton has been successful because it has focused its scholarship and its appointments around a single field.

"Many African-American studies departments try to replicate all the disciplines in the university. But that's not possible, the resources are simply not there," says Gates. The key is to develop a theme that all the scholarship revolves around, be it cultural studies or public policy. "The whole has to make sense," says Gates.

While Gates surely has his own ideas, it may be several months before the department as a whole focuses its vision and a specific theme develops.

As he works to build a new department, Gates is careful to emphasize that Afro-Am is for everybody, not just the concentrators. "We expect to be a place that all undergraduates will find support for interest in Afro-American culture," he says.

Nevertheless, non-concentrators will have a hard time seeing Gates, who is teaching a graduate seminar and an Afro-Am tutorial, or the department's other high-profile catch, Spike Lee, whose class is limited to 50 with preference given to Afro-Am concentrators.

Gates says that without a limitation, Lee's class would become a circus filled with gawkers. As for himself, Gates says in a couple of years he may well build a lecture class but for now he doesn't have time.

In addition to chairing the department, Gates is the director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute and is the editor of countless research projects. The Afro-Am chair says that all those committments mean that he regularly works 12-hour days.

Gates is making this commitment because, he says, he is responsibility not just to Harvard but to the study of Afro-American culture everywhere. My main responsibility is to ensure the academic integrity of our field," says Gates.

That means speaking out against voices that say that only Blacks can study Afro-American studies and against people who ignore the American in "African-American," he says.

Gates is concerned about the anti-semitism he has seen recently amid the work of some scholars, such as City University of New York Professor Leonard Jeffries. Gates says he must be a "powerful voice against vulger impulses in the discipline."

But Gates believes he can be that voice without leaving the banks of the Charles River. While tenured at Duke, Gates spent a lot of time away from Durham, attending conferences and giving lectures across the country. Gates says his leadership role in the field justified his frequent travel. On reflection, Gates says, his travel was also an excuse to leave Duke.

"It was very conservative, I am glad to be out of there," he says. "I will not miss being stereotyped as a left-wing activist hellbent on destroying the canon of Western literature."

Gates says he has found a home in Cambridge. Colleagues have been helpful and enthusiastic in helping start what is essentially a new program. Already Gates has brought in two new faces to the board of directors of the DuBois Institute: Porter University Professor Helen Vendler and Agassiz Professor of Zoology Stephen Jay Gould.

"I can't imagine more good will, I am really encouraged by the level of commitment," says Gates. "I have plans to stay here a very long time."