Talk:Arna Bontemps

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Wasn't Bontemps gay? Isn't that a fact that is extremely nontrivial to his life and work, and thus work mentioning?

Oakwood Junior College

I find it curious that there is no reference to Arna's stint at Oakwood, Alabama, a Black Historical College of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Biographer Violet Harris wrote that this was a formative period for Bontmeps-- he was even ordered to burn his books. Historian 21:19, 20 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dennishidalgo (talk • contribs)

Thoughts on the Wikipedia Article

Although this Wikipedia article provides readers with basic, factual information on Bontemps, it lacks essential information on his career, achievements, personal life and literary works. In contrast, American National Biography, equips readers with useful and accurate biographical information on him. It goes into great detail on Bontemps’ life and his trials and tribulations as an African-American writer in a segregated world. American National Biography will supply any person looking to learn more about Arna Bontemps with a terrific foundation of the crucial components of his life, whereas the Wikipedia article simply will not.

There were very few, minor factual errors in the Wikipedia article, for example, Bontemps’ parent’s names. However, I would predominantly criticize the article for its insufficient information.

The author of the American National Biography article is Robert E. Fleming. I struggled to find a substantial amount of information on him, however I was able to discover that he is widely known as an American literary scholar who generally focuses on Ernest Hemingway. He has published and edited many novels, including American Literary Realism 1870-1910 and a scholarly edition of Ernest Hemingway’s Under Kilimanjaro. Currently, Fleming is an English professor at the University of New Mexico.

One Wikipedia author that I noticed contributed a significant amount to the article was Lee Sawyer, a scientist, educator, writer and avid Internet user. Sawyer is a well-educated man who graduated with a Bachelors of Science degree in physics from the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 1985. He then continued to complete a PhD in physics at Florida State University in 1991. Sawyer is currently the Academic Director for Chemistry and Physics at Louisiana Tech University. Another large contributor to the Bontemps Wikipedia article is Andrew Gray, who is a librarian that works for the British Antarctic Survey. Gray joined Wikipedia while he was a postgraduate in October 2004, and later in 2005 he became an admin on the website. He was the Wikipedian in Residence at the British Library in London from May 2012 until April 2013. Before this he worked at a college in Cambridge and a private school in Oxfordshire.

Based off of my perception, it appears that there are adequate footnotes and references in this Wikipedia article. The footnotes and references are cited as books, bibliographical sources and even the source I used, American National Biography, therefore it seems to me that they are scholarly and legitimate. One piece of work that is cited is 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia written by Molefi Kete Asante. It is a biographical dictionary of historical African-Americans published in 2002 by Prometheus Books. The comparison text I used from American National Biography compiled sources from major collections of Arna Bontemps’ papers that can be found at Fisk University, the George Arents Research Library, Syracuse University and the James Weldon Johnson Collection. Fleming also used many of Bontemps’ autobiographical essays because no book-length biography exists of him. Some of Bontemps’ essays include the introduction to Black Thunder (1968), the preface to Personals (1963), and “Why I Returned,” in The Old South (1973).

Although there are no points of contention related to this article, one person has claimed that Bontemps was gay. This person seems to believe that this is an extremely important fact within Bontemps’ life that should be worth mentioning in the article. However, this person does not provide any evidence to support this claim nor does he or she give any reason as to why it is important. Through my own research on Bontemps, I have found no evidence to support a statement claiming him to be gay.

Overall, the Wikipedia article is very poorly organized. There are three separate sections, “Life and career”, “Career” and “Literary career” that could all be combined into one larger section to make it better organized. Although the American National Biography article on Bontemps is not organized into sections, it is undoubtedly assembled much better. This is partly because it simply has more information than the Wikipedia article. Having more information in the article makes the ability to put things into chronological order easier, which ultimately makes more sense to the reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kristynkajko (talk • contribs) 17:35, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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