Open Mike

By Michael Eric Dyson

Book Overview

Here, collected for the first time, are interviews and essays representing Michael Eric Dyson's most important thinking on race and identity. Exploring such topics as "whiteness" as seen through a black man's eye, modernism and postmodernism in black culture, and the emancipating role of black music from the plantation to the ghetto, Open Mike is a perfect introduction to Dyson's work and a must-have for students and scholars in African American Studies and Cultural Studies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465017657
• ISBN13: 9780465017652
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Too many huge words to enjoy...

The book has some very interesting point of views, but Mr. Dyson seems to go to great lengths to use words that display his higher level of education than the average person. By doing this he creates a disconnect between himself and the majority of people that he's trying to reach.

Outstanding public intellectual

Unlike the first reviewer of Dyson's book who said he was a "pinhead" I find this book an extrodinary review of the social conditions, in which our society subjects us all too. And please, can we not call authors demeaning names when we write reviews??!!! The person who wrote the first review using the word "pinhead" must be an adolescent and sounds jealous and angry. Thanks.

Controversial, Articulate, Unapologetic

Open Mike is a book that I picked up on accident and I thnak whatever angel was sitting on my shoulder that day. I had never been blessed enough to have been exposed to Dyson before and I was quite surprise about what I found. This man is BAD. He has the same theoretical and intellectual presence as Malcom, Martin, Carmichael, etc. In Open Mike, a series of interviews Dyson gave, I found that I was surprise that anyone could speak this way from the hip. I often wondered if he'd practiced what he had to say. Then I heard him speak at the State of the Black Chruch conference in Detroit, MI 2003. He's for real.Open Mike is an honest and revealing account of Dyson's life, his thoughts, and the controversies that he's started. No one is safe from this man 's tongue---no one. Pick it up and be enlightened.Also check out Race Rules: Navigating The Color Line; Holla If You Hear Me; and Why I Love Black Women.

Open Mic is Dyson's answer to the esoteric!!!

As a mentee of Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, I can certainly attest to his rhetorical genius, his intellectual compassion, his scholarly depth and his cerebral authority on a wide range of cultural, philosophical and theoretical themes. But as it occurs, many acadamicians (i.e. Adolph Reed) have questioned his scholarship, and even if he is a serious intellectual, suggesting that his writing tends to gravitate toward petty motives that deal with popular culture and the commercialization of societal issues. Nevermind that one of the most noted philosophers, Antonio Gramsci proposed the notion of the "organic intellectual" as one who could arise from the people but never become so esoterically connected to some ebony or ivory academy. That is Dyson--the organic intellectual--and we Dysonians appreciate him as a defining intellectual acrobat regardless of the commentaries put out by PEDANTIC scholars who resist mainstream culture, pretty much because they, themselves, fail to identify with it.But still, Dyson answers his critics with Open Mike, a scholarly enterprise of the highest order. The book is a collection of conversations on philosophy, race, sex, culture and religion, that definitively evinces the "seriousness" of Dyson's scholarship. Dyson effortlessly registers his deepening intellectual and moral convictions on every subject from poststructuralist theory to the polyrhythmic structures of African American musical traditions and from Nietzsche's view of God to the prism through with Nas analyzed black social plight.As Mark Anthony Neal stated in the foreword, "Open Mike is a critical beat-down!" I recommend that this scholarly contribution be digested by every intellect for its complex exploration into the various layers and dimensions of black radical discourse, politics and ethics. And I even further, invite all general readers to add this book to their reading appetite, as Dyson's consistent flow and vivid portrayals are sure to delight your thirst for an impassioned discussion of the social dynamics that affect us all.

The Man is Deep

He is truly One of the Greatest Writers that I have Ever Read on.Brother Dyson has a way with words & bringing so much Groove in His Presentation.I truly applaud the way He tackles so many subjects & never misses a beat.He is a Deep Cat & always someone you have to Read a Couple of times to fully Digest His Knowledge & Wide Scope of things going on.