Books by James J . Donahue
Greater Atlanta: Black Satire Since Obama, 2024
This is a draft version of the table of contents and the introduction for a collection of new cri... more This is a draft version of the table of contents and the introduction for a collection of new critical essays about contemporary African American satire that is slated for publication by the University Press of Mississippi in the spring of 2024. The version posted here is NOT finalized and should NOT be cited as being the actual publication.
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Contemporary Native Fiction: Toward a Narrative Poetics of Survivance analyzes paradigmatic works... more Contemporary Native Fiction: Toward a Narrative Poetics of Survivance analyzes paradigmatic works of contemporary Native American/First Nations literary fiction using the tools of narrative theory. Each chapter is read through the lens of a narrative theory – structuralist narratology, feminist narratology, rhetorical narratology, and unnatural narratology – in order to demonstrate how the formal structure of these narratives engage the political issues raised in the text. Additionally, each chapter shows how the inclusion of Native American/First Nations-authored narratives productively advance the theoretical work project of those narrative theories. This book offers a broad survey of possible means by which narrative theory and critical race theories can productively work together and is key reading for students and researchers working in this area.
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Narrative, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States, edited by James J. Donahue, Jennifer Ho, and... more Narrative, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States, edited by James J. Donahue, Jennifer Ho, and Shaun Morgan, is the first book-length volume of essays devoted to studying the intersection of race/ethnicity and narrative theories. Each chapter offers a sustained engagement with narrative theory and critical race theory as applied to ethnic American literature, exploring the interpretive possibilities of this critical intersection. Taken as a whole, these chapters demonstrate some of the many ways that the formal study of narrative can help us better understand the racial/ethnic tensions of narrative fictions. Similarly, the essays advance the tools of narrative theory by redeploying or redesigning those tools to better account for and articulate the ways that race and ethnicity are formal components of narrative as well as thematic issues.
Recognizing that racial/ethnic issues and tensions are often contextualized geographically, this volume focuses on narratives associated with various racial and ethnic communities in the United States. By engaging with new developments in narrative theory and critical race studies, this volume demonstrates the vitality of using the tools of narratology and critical race theory together to understand how race influences narrative and how narratology illuminates a reading of race in ethnic American literature.
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In Failed Frontiersmen, James Donahue writes that one of the founding and most persistent mytholo... more In Failed Frontiersmen, James Donahue writes that one of the founding and most persistent mythologies of the United States is that of the American frontier. Looking at a selection of twentieth-century American male fiction writers—E. L. Doctorow, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, Gerald Vizenor, and Cormac McCarthy—he shows how they reevaluated the historical romance of frontier mythology in response to the social and political movements of the 1960s (particularly regarding the Vietnam War, civil rights, and the treatment of Native Americans). Although these writers focus on different moments in American history and different geographic locations, the author reveals their commonly held belief that the frontier mythology failed to deliver on its promises of cultural stability and political advancement, especially in the face of the multicultural crucible of the 1960s.
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From "30 Americans" to "Angry White Boy," from "Bamboozled" to "The Boondocks," from "Chappelle's... more From "30 Americans" to "Angry White Boy," from "Bamboozled" to "The Boondocks," from "Chappelle's Show" to "The Colored Museum," this collection of twenty-one essays takes an interdisciplinary look at the flowering of satire and its influence in defining new roles in black identity. As a mode of expression for a generation of writers, comedians, cartoonists, musicians, filmmakers, and visual/conceptual artists, satire enables collective questioning of many of the fundamental presumptions about black identity in the wake of the civil rights movement. Whether taking place in popular and controversial television shows, in a provocative series of short internet films, in prize-winning novels and plays, in comic strips, or in conceptual hip hop albums, this satirical impulse has found a receptive audience both within and outside the black community.
Such works have been variously called "post-black," "post-soul," and examples of a "New Black Aesthetic." Whatever the label, this collection bears witness to a noteworthy shift regarding the ways in which African American satirists feel constrained by conventional obligations when treating issues of racial identity, historical memory, and material representation of blackness.
Among the artists examined in this collection are Paul Beatty, Dave Chappelle, Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino), Spike Lee, Aaron McGruder, Lynn Nottage, ZZ Packer, Suzan Lori-Parks, Mickalene Thomas, Toure, Kara Walker, and George C. Wolfe. The essays intentionally seek out interconnections among various forms of artistic expression. Contributors look at the ways in which contemporary African American satire engages in a broad ranging critique that exposes fraudulent, outdated, absurd, or otherwise damaging mindsets and behaviors both within and outside the African American community.
Includes essays by Bertram D. Ashe, Thomas R. Britt, Darryl Dickson-Carr, James J. Donahue, Michael B. Gillespie, Gillian Johns, Luvena Kopp, Jennifer Larson, Cameron Leader-Picone, Brandon Manning, Marvin McAllister, Danielle Fuentes Morgan, Derek Conrad Murray, Kinohi Nishikawa, Keenan Norris, Christian Schmidt, Linda Furgerson Selzer, Terrence T. Tucker, Sam Vásquez, and Aimee Zygmonski; with a critical introduction by Derek C. Maus.
---------------------------
Reviews:
"The twenty-one essays that follow coeditor Derek C. Maus’s fine introduction to this tome demonstrate that, while post-soul may be a contentious epithet, the book _Post-Soul Satire_ is a scholarly treasure trove for those interested in the outcropping of satirical African American writing, visual art, music, film, and television that appeared in the twenty-five years following the publication of novelist Trey Ellis’s much discussed article “The New Black Aesthetic” in the Winter 1989 issue of _Callaloo_.[...]
_Post-Soul Satire: Black Identity after Civil Rights_ maps the courageous (to some), unsettling (to others) trajectory African American print, dramatic, and visual artists have pursued in the recent past. And given the present-day socioeconomic and political circumstances in America and abroad, it seems clear that African American satirists will have no need to dull, much less put away, their barbed weapons any time soon. Though the task is daunting, our satirists, with Juvenalian scorn and Horatian mockery, will continue to expose societal warts and cancers with the goal of ameliorating broken aspects of America’s social contract, and _Post-Soul Satire_ will provide the rest of us with a powerful framework for better understanding the complex challenges these artists do and will face. This is not merely a good book but an important one."
-- Joe Weixlmann, _African American Review_ 48.1-2 (Spring-Summer 2015)
"In this dexterous, cogent collection, Maus and Donahue (both, SUNY Potsdam) gather 21 scholarly essays that examine the use, effectiveness, and embrace of satire within African American art of the last two decades. Taken together, the essays propose that satirical postures in contemporary black art communicate an imperative among a new generation of black artists to broaden and redefine African American identity in the post–civil rights/Obama (read “post-black”) era. Though complex at times, the critical work accomplished here sustains engagement. The contributors exhibit an admirable command of history, theory, lexicon, and cultural aesthetics. Moreover, the depth and range of analyses encourage exploration of the many primary texts examined in these pages. Particular attention is paid to the works of Kara Walker, Percival Everett, Aaron McGruder, and Touré. Though these offerings—replete with challenging academic language and lofty theorizations—do not lend themselves to readers outside the academy, those interested in thoughtful critiques of popular culture, literature, media studies, and African American studies will find abundant rewards here. Summing Up: Highly recommended."
-- Jarret Neal, _Choice_ 52.8 (April 2015)
"While there are a number of books on the concepts of post-soul and post-racial (many referenced in the book’s nineteen essays), this collection could be an excellent place to begin one’s education on the topic, even given the focus on satire. The range of material and depth of investigation into satiric representations of black subjectivity in a variety of media is impressive. In his introduction to the collection, Derek Maus makes a persuasive case for the strength of an African American brand of satire significant for understanding current comic art in the United States."
-- James E. Caron, _Studies in American Humor_ 2.1 (Jan. 2016)
"Ultimately, this text will be useful to anyone who is particularly interested in satire, its inner workings, and its social and political impact. It is also going to be useful to anyone researching Black humor as well as those working with the complex methods by which some Black Americans negotiate complicated positions in contemporary society. Furthermore, given recent discussions in the public sphere regarding what does and does not count as satire and who should or should not be the targets of satire, the text seems especially relevant."
-- Jacinta Yanders, _Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature_ 45.1 (2017)
"Post-Soul Satire is a well-chosen assortment of essays that discusses African American issues in various media within the cultural context of the United States and in terms of the phenomenon of post-soul[...]. It is an important contribution to American humor studies, given its sustained focus on satire, humor, and irony."
-- Debarati Byabartta, _Studies in American Humor_ 3.2 (2017)
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CFP by James J . Donahue
Greater Atlanta: African American Satire since Obama, 2023
This call for papers is now closed to new submissions and the volume is slated for publication in... more This call for papers is now closed to new submissions and the volume is slated for publication in fall of 2023 by the University Press of Missisippi.
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Articles and Chapters by James J . Donahue
Narrative, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States, edited by James Donahue, Jennifer Ann Ho, and Shaun Morgan, 2017
I forward a theory of racial proximity in Latinx studies via narratology (Rey Chow, Gerard Genett... more I forward a theory of racial proximity in Latinx studies via narratology (Rey Chow, Gerard Genette). Includes a critique of Dan Savage's performance of brownface as part of It Gets Better that I call "homo-narrative capture," and a reading of Justin Suarez in ABC's Ugly Betty as a queer figural interruption of (and escape from) white, gay politics.
Excerpt: "This essay examines how narrative acts, theorized as performances in their worldmaking capacity, can approximate something other than the familiar, rote, and even deadening affects of racial and sexual normativity. For those subjects José Esteban Muñoz calls “racialized kids, queer kids” in the epigraph above, I see in this imaginative escape into possible worlds and the performance of new social possibilities through narrative a way of laying claim to futurity. Narratives offer a fabricated then or elsewhere within which one can participate in new kinds of affiliation and selfhood (Muñoz, Cruising Utopia 95). But making space for an aesthetics of possibility demands a slackening of some of the rubrics of formal and social interpretation. Proximity’s light touch, emphasizing figural and material nearness, points to forms of relation that might not register in theories of colonization, acculturation, or formalized structures of interracial kinship that lie at the crux of much postcolonial and critical race analysis. A theory of racial proximity highlights the way queer narrative tactics are practiced as everyday modes of social intervention and survival amid vexed relations to, rather than independent of, the normal. The normal itself can be understood, after Judith Butler, as the repetition unto invisibility of particular narratives about identity, such that a narrow set of practices appear natural (Butler, Gender Trouble 31). To approximate rather than fulfill an identity into which a subject is hailed evokes measured imprecision, contingency, unpredictability, and the refusal of repetition and resolution in relation to the normal. Approximation is a strategic falling short of the normal."
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Papers by James J . Donahue
European journal of American studies, 2015
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European journal of American studies, 2018
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Item embargoed for five year
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Books by James J . Donahue
Recognizing that racial/ethnic issues and tensions are often contextualized geographically, this volume focuses on narratives associated with various racial and ethnic communities in the United States. By engaging with new developments in narrative theory and critical race studies, this volume demonstrates the vitality of using the tools of narratology and critical race theory together to understand how race influences narrative and how narratology illuminates a reading of race in ethnic American literature.
Such works have been variously called "post-black," "post-soul," and examples of a "New Black Aesthetic." Whatever the label, this collection bears witness to a noteworthy shift regarding the ways in which African American satirists feel constrained by conventional obligations when treating issues of racial identity, historical memory, and material representation of blackness.
Among the artists examined in this collection are Paul Beatty, Dave Chappelle, Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino), Spike Lee, Aaron McGruder, Lynn Nottage, ZZ Packer, Suzan Lori-Parks, Mickalene Thomas, Toure, Kara Walker, and George C. Wolfe. The essays intentionally seek out interconnections among various forms of artistic expression. Contributors look at the ways in which contemporary African American satire engages in a broad ranging critique that exposes fraudulent, outdated, absurd, or otherwise damaging mindsets and behaviors both within and outside the African American community.
Includes essays by Bertram D. Ashe, Thomas R. Britt, Darryl Dickson-Carr, James J. Donahue, Michael B. Gillespie, Gillian Johns, Luvena Kopp, Jennifer Larson, Cameron Leader-Picone, Brandon Manning, Marvin McAllister, Danielle Fuentes Morgan, Derek Conrad Murray, Kinohi Nishikawa, Keenan Norris, Christian Schmidt, Linda Furgerson Selzer, Terrence T. Tucker, Sam Vásquez, and Aimee Zygmonski; with a critical introduction by Derek C. Maus.
---------------------------
Reviews:
"The twenty-one essays that follow coeditor Derek C. Maus’s fine introduction to this tome demonstrate that, while post-soul may be a contentious epithet, the book _Post-Soul Satire_ is a scholarly treasure trove for those interested in the outcropping of satirical African American writing, visual art, music, film, and television that appeared in the twenty-five years following the publication of novelist Trey Ellis’s much discussed article “The New Black Aesthetic” in the Winter 1989 issue of _Callaloo_.[...]
_Post-Soul Satire: Black Identity after Civil Rights_ maps the courageous (to some), unsettling (to others) trajectory African American print, dramatic, and visual artists have pursued in the recent past. And given the present-day socioeconomic and political circumstances in America and abroad, it seems clear that African American satirists will have no need to dull, much less put away, their barbed weapons any time soon. Though the task is daunting, our satirists, with Juvenalian scorn and Horatian mockery, will continue to expose societal warts and cancers with the goal of ameliorating broken aspects of America’s social contract, and _Post-Soul Satire_ will provide the rest of us with a powerful framework for better understanding the complex challenges these artists do and will face. This is not merely a good book but an important one."
-- Joe Weixlmann, _African American Review_ 48.1-2 (Spring-Summer 2015)
"In this dexterous, cogent collection, Maus and Donahue (both, SUNY Potsdam) gather 21 scholarly essays that examine the use, effectiveness, and embrace of satire within African American art of the last two decades. Taken together, the essays propose that satirical postures in contemporary black art communicate an imperative among a new generation of black artists to broaden and redefine African American identity in the post–civil rights/Obama (read “post-black”) era. Though complex at times, the critical work accomplished here sustains engagement. The contributors exhibit an admirable command of history, theory, lexicon, and cultural aesthetics. Moreover, the depth and range of analyses encourage exploration of the many primary texts examined in these pages. Particular attention is paid to the works of Kara Walker, Percival Everett, Aaron McGruder, and Touré. Though these offerings—replete with challenging academic language and lofty theorizations—do not lend themselves to readers outside the academy, those interested in thoughtful critiques of popular culture, literature, media studies, and African American studies will find abundant rewards here. Summing Up: Highly recommended."
-- Jarret Neal, _Choice_ 52.8 (April 2015)
"While there are a number of books on the concepts of post-soul and post-racial (many referenced in the book’s nineteen essays), this collection could be an excellent place to begin one’s education on the topic, even given the focus on satire. The range of material and depth of investigation into satiric representations of black subjectivity in a variety of media is impressive. In his introduction to the collection, Derek Maus makes a persuasive case for the strength of an African American brand of satire significant for understanding current comic art in the United States."
-- James E. Caron, _Studies in American Humor_ 2.1 (Jan. 2016)
"Ultimately, this text will be useful to anyone who is particularly interested in satire, its inner workings, and its social and political impact. It is also going to be useful to anyone researching Black humor as well as those working with the complex methods by which some Black Americans negotiate complicated positions in contemporary society. Furthermore, given recent discussions in the public sphere regarding what does and does not count as satire and who should or should not be the targets of satire, the text seems especially relevant."
-- Jacinta Yanders, _Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature_ 45.1 (2017)
"Post-Soul Satire is a well-chosen assortment of essays that discusses African American issues in various media within the cultural context of the United States and in terms of the phenomenon of post-soul[...]. It is an important contribution to American humor studies, given its sustained focus on satire, humor, and irony."
-- Debarati Byabartta, _Studies in American Humor_ 3.2 (2017)
CFP by James J . Donahue
Articles and Chapters by James J . Donahue
Excerpt: "This essay examines how narrative acts, theorized as performances in their worldmaking capacity, can approximate something other than the familiar, rote, and even deadening affects of racial and sexual normativity. For those subjects José Esteban Muñoz calls “racialized kids, queer kids” in the epigraph above, I see in this imaginative escape into possible worlds and the performance of new social possibilities through narrative a way of laying claim to futurity. Narratives offer a fabricated then or elsewhere within which one can participate in new kinds of affiliation and selfhood (Muñoz, Cruising Utopia 95). But making space for an aesthetics of possibility demands a slackening of some of the rubrics of formal and social interpretation. Proximity’s light touch, emphasizing figural and material nearness, points to forms of relation that might not register in theories of colonization, acculturation, or formalized structures of interracial kinship that lie at the crux of much postcolonial and critical race analysis. A theory of racial proximity highlights the way queer narrative tactics are practiced as everyday modes of social intervention and survival amid vexed relations to, rather than independent of, the normal. The normal itself can be understood, after Judith Butler, as the repetition unto invisibility of particular narratives about identity, such that a narrow set of practices appear natural (Butler, Gender Trouble 31). To approximate rather than fulfill an identity into which a subject is hailed evokes measured imprecision, contingency, unpredictability, and the refusal of repetition and resolution in relation to the normal. Approximation is a strategic falling short of the normal."
Papers by James J . Donahue
Recognizing that racial/ethnic issues and tensions are often contextualized geographically, this volume focuses on narratives associated with various racial and ethnic communities in the United States. By engaging with new developments in narrative theory and critical race studies, this volume demonstrates the vitality of using the tools of narratology and critical race theory together to understand how race influences narrative and how narratology illuminates a reading of race in ethnic American literature.
Such works have been variously called "post-black," "post-soul," and examples of a "New Black Aesthetic." Whatever the label, this collection bears witness to a noteworthy shift regarding the ways in which African American satirists feel constrained by conventional obligations when treating issues of racial identity, historical memory, and material representation of blackness.
Among the artists examined in this collection are Paul Beatty, Dave Chappelle, Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino), Spike Lee, Aaron McGruder, Lynn Nottage, ZZ Packer, Suzan Lori-Parks, Mickalene Thomas, Toure, Kara Walker, and George C. Wolfe. The essays intentionally seek out interconnections among various forms of artistic expression. Contributors look at the ways in which contemporary African American satire engages in a broad ranging critique that exposes fraudulent, outdated, absurd, or otherwise damaging mindsets and behaviors both within and outside the African American community.
Includes essays by Bertram D. Ashe, Thomas R. Britt, Darryl Dickson-Carr, James J. Donahue, Michael B. Gillespie, Gillian Johns, Luvena Kopp, Jennifer Larson, Cameron Leader-Picone, Brandon Manning, Marvin McAllister, Danielle Fuentes Morgan, Derek Conrad Murray, Kinohi Nishikawa, Keenan Norris, Christian Schmidt, Linda Furgerson Selzer, Terrence T. Tucker, Sam Vásquez, and Aimee Zygmonski; with a critical introduction by Derek C. Maus.
---------------------------
Reviews:
"The twenty-one essays that follow coeditor Derek C. Maus’s fine introduction to this tome demonstrate that, while post-soul may be a contentious epithet, the book _Post-Soul Satire_ is a scholarly treasure trove for those interested in the outcropping of satirical African American writing, visual art, music, film, and television that appeared in the twenty-five years following the publication of novelist Trey Ellis’s much discussed article “The New Black Aesthetic” in the Winter 1989 issue of _Callaloo_.[...]
_Post-Soul Satire: Black Identity after Civil Rights_ maps the courageous (to some), unsettling (to others) trajectory African American print, dramatic, and visual artists have pursued in the recent past. And given the present-day socioeconomic and political circumstances in America and abroad, it seems clear that African American satirists will have no need to dull, much less put away, their barbed weapons any time soon. Though the task is daunting, our satirists, with Juvenalian scorn and Horatian mockery, will continue to expose societal warts and cancers with the goal of ameliorating broken aspects of America’s social contract, and _Post-Soul Satire_ will provide the rest of us with a powerful framework for better understanding the complex challenges these artists do and will face. This is not merely a good book but an important one."
-- Joe Weixlmann, _African American Review_ 48.1-2 (Spring-Summer 2015)
"In this dexterous, cogent collection, Maus and Donahue (both, SUNY Potsdam) gather 21 scholarly essays that examine the use, effectiveness, and embrace of satire within African American art of the last two decades. Taken together, the essays propose that satirical postures in contemporary black art communicate an imperative among a new generation of black artists to broaden and redefine African American identity in the post–civil rights/Obama (read “post-black”) era. Though complex at times, the critical work accomplished here sustains engagement. The contributors exhibit an admirable command of history, theory, lexicon, and cultural aesthetics. Moreover, the depth and range of analyses encourage exploration of the many primary texts examined in these pages. Particular attention is paid to the works of Kara Walker, Percival Everett, Aaron McGruder, and Touré. Though these offerings—replete with challenging academic language and lofty theorizations—do not lend themselves to readers outside the academy, those interested in thoughtful critiques of popular culture, literature, media studies, and African American studies will find abundant rewards here. Summing Up: Highly recommended."
-- Jarret Neal, _Choice_ 52.8 (April 2015)
"While there are a number of books on the concepts of post-soul and post-racial (many referenced in the book’s nineteen essays), this collection could be an excellent place to begin one’s education on the topic, even given the focus on satire. The range of material and depth of investigation into satiric representations of black subjectivity in a variety of media is impressive. In his introduction to the collection, Derek Maus makes a persuasive case for the strength of an African American brand of satire significant for understanding current comic art in the United States."
-- James E. Caron, _Studies in American Humor_ 2.1 (Jan. 2016)
"Ultimately, this text will be useful to anyone who is particularly interested in satire, its inner workings, and its social and political impact. It is also going to be useful to anyone researching Black humor as well as those working with the complex methods by which some Black Americans negotiate complicated positions in contemporary society. Furthermore, given recent discussions in the public sphere regarding what does and does not count as satire and who should or should not be the targets of satire, the text seems especially relevant."
-- Jacinta Yanders, _Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature_ 45.1 (2017)
"Post-Soul Satire is a well-chosen assortment of essays that discusses African American issues in various media within the cultural context of the United States and in terms of the phenomenon of post-soul[...]. It is an important contribution to American humor studies, given its sustained focus on satire, humor, and irony."
-- Debarati Byabartta, _Studies in American Humor_ 3.2 (2017)
Excerpt: "This essay examines how narrative acts, theorized as performances in their worldmaking capacity, can approximate something other than the familiar, rote, and even deadening affects of racial and sexual normativity. For those subjects José Esteban Muñoz calls “racialized kids, queer kids” in the epigraph above, I see in this imaginative escape into possible worlds and the performance of new social possibilities through narrative a way of laying claim to futurity. Narratives offer a fabricated then or elsewhere within which one can participate in new kinds of affiliation and selfhood (Muñoz, Cruising Utopia 95). But making space for an aesthetics of possibility demands a slackening of some of the rubrics of formal and social interpretation. Proximity’s light touch, emphasizing figural and material nearness, points to forms of relation that might not register in theories of colonization, acculturation, or formalized structures of interracial kinship that lie at the crux of much postcolonial and critical race analysis. A theory of racial proximity highlights the way queer narrative tactics are practiced as everyday modes of social intervention and survival amid vexed relations to, rather than independent of, the normal. The normal itself can be understood, after Judith Butler, as the repetition unto invisibility of particular narratives about identity, such that a narrow set of practices appear natural (Butler, Gender Trouble 31). To approximate rather than fulfill an identity into which a subject is hailed evokes measured imprecision, contingency, unpredictability, and the refusal of repetition and resolution in relation to the normal. Approximation is a strategic falling short of the normal."