Collected from Oh! Industry

7.15.2008
In Memoriam || Lindon Barrett
This morning we received tragic news about the passing of someone whose work, spirit and strength has inspired us for many years. Lindon Barrett, formerly the director of African American Studies at UC Irvine, and recently appointed Professor of English at UC Riverside, was found murdered in his residence this weekend in Long Beach, CA.

Daniel Tsang, host of the KUCI radio show Subversity, offers more details here, while music writer and UCI alum, Ned Raggett, offers a tribute here, along with links to further information from news oulets like the Orange County Register. Needless to say, we are all shocked and saddened by this news and offer our deepest condolences to his families (by choice as well as blood), and to the many who have been nurtured by his work and friendship.

There is much to say about the beautiful complexity of Lindon's work--about the prescience of his early essay on Ann Petry's The Street; about his brilliant book, Blackness and Value: Seeing Double (Cambridge, 1999), which continues to exert a tremendous influence, both theoretically and lyrically, on scholars of critical theory, aesthetics, musicality and race. In honor of him, and of a life and work so richly consumed by (in his own words) the "sly alterity of the singing voice, a voice assuming much more than mere 'traditional' speech," we offer this tribute in song: "Good Morning Heartache" by Billie Holiday

4 COMMENTS:

Lisa Ness said...
It was my great pleasure and luck to have worked with Lindon. He was a radiant soul and I'll miss his fierce intelligence and kindness.

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008 2:46:00 PM PDT
sharon oster said...
I was lucky enough to take a graduate seminar from Lindon at UCLA many years ago when he visited there - "Blackness and the Mind/body Split." He challenged me, inspired me, and supported my work, not only offering me the chance for my first publication in a book he was editing, but by engaging so deeply with my ideas. I was blown away as a grad student to be mentored, and taken so seriously, by a visiting professor. When I was later his colleague, briefly, at UCI, he welcomed me with warmth and kindness.

Lindon's work has shaped the way I think. He introduced me to Elaine Scarry and to body criticism early in my career, and his essay on legibility and William and Ellen Craft has been a constant reference point when I read and teach slave narrative.

So smart, Lindon, and so kind - but mostly I'll remember his generous intellectual spirit.

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008 4:16:00 PM PDT
Farid Matuk said...
Lindon showed me how to feel free, that we can choose at any moment to do something extraordinary. He could transform an interaction - sometimes just by the way he listened, sometimes with something he said. Of course his scholarship was brilliant and fierce, but he also brought that intensity and soul to human interactions and that was what impressed me so. He was the first person I met who was insistent about what we brought to each other as human beings. He was a soul worker. First, by reminding you you had one, then by actually speaking to it or dancing to it or creating a space for it to be. I will remember many intimate moments, but most of all, to honor him, I will try to remember the ever present possibility.

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008 7:09:00 PM PDT
Professor Mireille Miller-Young said...
Lindon was immensely generous to me, and extremely supportive of my work. He gave me one of the best introductions I ever had when I spoke at Irvine in 2005. He was brilliant and a great mentor. I am saddened by this loss. Thanks for playing Billie for him!