The Katrina Papers is not your average memoir. It is a fusion of many kinds of writing, including intellectual autobiography, personal narrative, political/cultural analysis, spiritual journal, literary history, and poetry. Though it is the record of one man's experience of Hurricane Katrina, it is a record that is fully a part of his life and work as a scholar, political activist, and professor.  The Katrina Papers provides space not only for the traumatic events but also for ruminations on authors such as Richard Wright and theorists like Deleuze and Guattarri. The result is a complex though thoroughly accessible book. The struggle with form—the search for a medium proper to the complex social, personal, and political ramifications of an event unprecedented in this scholar's life and in American social history—lies at the very heart of The Katrina Papers. It depicts an enigmatic and multi-stranded world view which takes the local as its nexus for understanding the global.  It resists the temptation to simplify or clarify when simplification and clarification are not possible. Ward's narrative is, at times, very direct, but he always refuses to simplify the complex emotional and spiritual volatility of the process and the historical moment that he is witnessing. The end result is an honesty that is both pedagogical and inspiring.—Hank Lazer

Dear Jerry, The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008) is a marvelous resource! It's not like any encyclopedia I've seen before. Already, I have spent hours reading through the various entries. So much is there: people, themes, issues, events, bibliographies, etc., related to Wright. Yours is a monumental contribution! The more I read Wright (and about him), the more I am amazed at the depth and breadth of his work and its impact on the worlds of literature, philosophy, politics, sociology, history, psychology, etc. He was formidable! Floyd W. Hayes

Dear Jerry,
 
I received my copy of The Katrina Papers this past weekend. I had to order it directly from UNO Press. This is a formidable volume! You write with such eloquence, passion, insight, and power. As survivor and raconteur of Katrina's devastation, you give the reader your reflections on this event; you also provide us with informed commentaries about a broad variety of other issues that attract your attention and the people with whom you interact. As a student of politics, I guess I am just overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of your critical observations. Reading this volume and The Richard Wright Encyclopedia, I can comprehend not only the centrality of Richard Wright to your scholarly project, but I also can grasp your own intellectual power and clear vision. For example, your critique of Robert Lashley' rant about Wright's LAWD TODAY is the model of the art of critique. Marvelous!
 
Thanks for your generous comment on my paper on Robeson and Wright. I continue to read both of your books. As always, Floyd W. Hayes

Rudy, Jerry's Katrina Papers, which I started reading last night, is, indeed, extraordinary. It's not a new genre, however; it's really set in the frame of a journal—not the 19th-century kind like that of Ida B. Wells and of so many other, primarily women writers of that period—but more like the "new diary," described by Tristine Rainer as a "journal for self guidance and expanded creativity." In many ways it's similar to Frida Kahlo's journal or notebook—in her case, designed for creative self-expression through the incorporation of sketches, notes, and symbols (primarily visual images); in his case designed for intellectual reflection through the incorporation of verbal images and symbols.

In many ways, his journal and the "new diary" finds its postmodern manifestation in the blog, particularly one like Ethelbert's. The journal/new diary/blog is an extremely flexible genre that permits the inclusion of various other forms: poetry, Q & As, course syllabi, dialogs, prose pieces, doodlings, sketches, dramatic scenes, etc. I was particularly fascinated with Jerry's piece about his body, suggesting as it does, separation and disconnection from the "life of the mind" that he lives. Jerry is an intellectual par excellence with little indication in the Papers  of his physical/pleasurable self. Maybe he'll expand later in the book on his trips to casinos and enjoyment of Jack Daniels. But, then, the book is not a reflection on joy, but, as you say, of power and clarity in the midst of disaster and depression. Most people would have disintegrated under such trauma. More about this later as I get my thoughts together. Miriam

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updated 19 January 2009