New Books in Critical Theory John Drabinski, "So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlantic" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
Feb 18, 2026
John Drabinski, a professor of African American and Africana Studies and English, reads James Baldwin as a philosophical thinker. He situates Baldwin within mid-20th century Black Atlantic debates. Short, sharp topics include Baldwin’s focus on the auction block and spirituals, his images of African, white, and Negro, comparisons with Fanon, Black English as a lived world, and the idea of interstitial home life.
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Lima Conversation That Redirected His Career
- John Drabinski recounts a turning-point conversation in Lima that pushed him toward studying the Black Americas.
- He then took a solo trip and began a decade-plus reading project into Black intellectual traditions.
Colleague’s Push To Read Baldwin
- Drabinski describes his colleague Jeff Ferguson insisting he read Baldwin until he did the full collected nonfiction in a summer.
- That deep immersion convinced him Baldwin addressed most of his theoretical questions.
Reading Baldwin Through The Black Atlantic
- Drabinski argues Baldwin must be read within the mid-century Black Atlantic despite Baldwin's narrow citations.
- He emphasizes reading absences as a productive critical method to reveal Baldwin's context and limits.
