MLR, 96. I, 200 MLR, 96. I, 200 argues, is one in which black public intellectuals have refused to take on the 'landlocked role' of race champion and group representative. In repudiating the essentialistdogmas of racial 'authenticity',the writersconcerned have moved from the provincialism of the ethnos to the wider public responsibilitiesof the politikos. They have, in short, kept faith with the Dreyfusard ideal of cosmopolitan universalism, and in doing so they vitally illuminate modes of resistance to the reductivetribalismof contemporaryidentitypolitics. W. E. B. Du Bois is undoubtedly the hero of the book. A good half of the discussionis centrallyconcerned with his pioneering effortsto enlarge the function and domain of the blackintellectual beyond the duties of racial uplift, and even in those chapters which deal with other writers, the Du Boisian presence is strongly felt as touchstone and inspiration in the quest for ethical and cultural values unbounded by the colour line. Shaped by the pragmatist pluralism of William James, Posnock's Du Bois emerges as an attractive figure, constantly in motion against fixed categories of identity and difference. His theorizing of the 'modern' intellectual'scosmopolitanroleis tellinglycontrastedwith (andpreferredto) Booker T. Washington's more 'organic' and separatist notion of race work. A further juxtaposition readsDu Bois and FrantzFanontogetheras 'prophetsof ninetiespostethnicity ', and notes, with some irony, that the black nationalistswho (mis)quoted this radicalpair with such fervourin the 196oswere ideologically closer, in fact, to the conservatismof Washington. Ranging freelyacrossthe twentiethcentury,Posnock'semphasisis on intellectual history,with an occasional admixtureof literarycriticism.Selectively,he constructs an 'anti-racerace lineage' of blackwriterswho, scepticalof group identity, have in the Du Boisian tradition attempted to situate themselves at the unstable interface between the particularand the universal,between ethnicity and cosmopolitanism. Starting from Pauline Hopkins's Of OneBlood,the line zigzags through some unexpected groupings and illustrativetexts. In one chapter, Du Bois's novel Dark Princess is set alongside Nella Larsen's Quicksand. In another, Locke, Hurston, and Toomer are tied in with Ralph Ellison'sessay 'The LittleMan at Chehaw Station'. Self-inventionand the 'agon'of the blackintellectuallinkthe unlikelybut intriguing pair of Baldwinand Baraka,with a backwardsglance at Claude McKay's Banjoand a sideways one at the Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah. The final chapter examineshow the traditionisbeing reconfiguredin the avant-gardeworkof Samuel Delany and Adrienne Kennedy. Color andCulture is one of those books so prolificin suggestion,so stimulatingin its juxtapositions, so profound in its critique of racial essentialism,that the reviewer's task becomes an exercise in frustration: such intellectual riches do not lend themselves to a short summary. CharlesJohnson, award-winningauthor of Middle Passage and Dreamer, describes Posnock'scontribution to American literaryhistory as 'monumentallyimportant'.Michael Rogin says, 'This is a book to contend with'. I say 'Amen'. UNIVERSITY OF READING CHRISTINE MACLEOD How WeBecame Posthuman. Virtual Bodiesin Cybernetics, Literature andInformatics.By N. KATHERINE HAYLES. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1999- xiv + 350 pp. $49; [39.25 (paperbound$i8; [i4.50). N. Katherine Hayles, who according to the book jacket has advanced degrees in both Chemistryand English,setsout, she says,to tell three 'stories'.The firstis 'how informationlost itsbody';the second, how the cyborgwas createdas a technological argues, is one in which black public intellectuals have refused to take on the 'landlocked role' of race champion and group representative. In repudiating the essentialistdogmas of racial 'authenticity',the writersconcerned have moved from the provincialism of the ethnos to the wider public responsibilitiesof the politikos. They have, in short, kept faith with the Dreyfusard ideal of cosmopolitan universalism, and in doing so they vitally illuminate modes of resistance to the reductivetribalismof contemporaryidentitypolitics. W. E. B. Du Bois is undoubtedly the hero of the book. A good half of the discussionis centrallyconcerned with his pioneering effortsto enlarge the function and domain of the blackintellectual beyond the duties of racial uplift, and even in those chapters which deal with other writers, the Du Boisian presence is strongly felt as touchstone and inspiration in the quest for ethical and cultural values unbounded by the colour line. Shaped by the pragmatist pluralism of William James, Posnock's Du Bois emerges as an attractive figure, constantly in motion against fixed categories of identity and difference. His theorizing of the 'modern' intellectual'scosmopolitanroleis...