{"id":23361,"date":"2020-04-13T17:48:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T22:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/library\/?p=23361"},"modified":"2020-08-10T13:37:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T18:37:49","slug":"from-the-desk-of-chancellor-dwight-c-watson-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/library\/archives\/23361","title":{"rendered":"From the Desk of Chancellor Dwight C. Watson – Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Book<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Water Dancer <\/em>\u2013 Ta-Nehisi Coates<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One in a series of reviews<\/a> contributed by Chancellor Dwight C. Watson <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA door had opened. The land had folded like fabric.\nConduction, Conduction, Conduction.\u201d To read The Water Dancer<\/em>, you must unleash your ability to be tethered. You\nhave to escape former notions of the Underground Railroad and Harriett Tubman\nand move into the realm of the magical, mystical, and the macabre. You can no\nlonger be shackled to a forgone conclusion and must simply give into\nconduction. \u201cThat is conduction. The many stories, the many bridges, the way\nover the river.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiram Walker, the main character, begins the tale as his\nmother is taken away and he has to find another home in which to live. Hiram is\na slave with nothing more than a memory mostly of his mother as a beautiful\nwoman doing a water-dance with a jug propped upon her head. His mother was the\nmistress of the master and Hiram is the master\u2019s son.  With a resemblance of the master, he is\nbrought into the main house as the caretaker of his half-brother, the\nlegitimate, White, heir of the Virginian Lockless Plantation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiram is notably intelligent, has a savant-type memory of\nthe mundane, but little memory of his own history which is the key to a power\nthat he does not entirely understand. As he learns to use this power, he will\nescape, be abducted, transplanted, and transformed as he journeys across\nAmerica. It will also force him to confront his memories and truths about\nslavery and his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through harrowing experiences and the tutelage from the magical and mythical Harriet Tubman, Hiram is taught to understand his power of conduction.  Conduction is the power to teleport through memory and water connectivity groups of people from one place to another.  As Hiram conjures his powers, he reflects, \u201cI just sat there watching her in this silence. I felt that she looked different as though the very texture of her story had somehow been etched into her face. The summoning of a story, the water, and the object that made memory real as brick: that was Conduction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ta-Nehisi Coates is exceptional at reimaging the Antebellum South from that of the history books.  He categorized his characters as the:<\/p>\n\n\n\n