African American Literature in Transition, 1920–1930: Volume 9

This book analyses historical, literary, and cultural shifts in African American literature from the 1920s-1930s.

Miriam Thaggert (Edited by), Rachel Farebrother (Edited by)

9781108834162, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 April 2022

350 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.8 cm, 0.722 kg

African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 presents original essays that map ideological, historical, and cultural shifts in the 1920s. Complicating the familiar reading of the 1920s as a decade that began with a spectacular boom and ended with disillusionment and bust, the collection explores the range and diversity of Black cultural production. Emphasizing a generative contrast between the ephemeral qualities of periodicals, clothes, and décor and the relative fixity of canonical texts, this volume captures in its dynamics a cultural movement that was fluid and expansive. Chapters by leading scholars are grouped into four sections: 'Habitus, Sound, Fashion'; 'Spaces: Chronicles of Harlem and Beyond'; 'Uplift Renewed: Religion, Protest, and Education,' and 'Serial Reading: Magazines and Periodical Culture.'

Introduction: Expecting more: African American literature in transition, 1920-30 Miriam Thaggert and Rachel Farebrother
Part I. Habitus, Sound, Fashion: 1. New Negro literary décor: Competing tastes in 1920s Cherene Sherrard-Johnson
2. The new Negro movement's recording imaginary Sonnet Retman
3. Sartorial self-fashioning in the Harlem renaissance Kimberly Lamm
Part II. Space: Chronicles of Harlem and Beyond: 4. Going Dutch: From renaissance Haarlem to the Harlem renaissance Michael Soto
5. The unmaking of the new Mecca Shannon King
6. Subversions of Boasian objectivity in Zora Neale Hurston's great migration fiction and ethnography M. Genevieve West
7. W. E. B. Du Bois and the fluid subject: Dark princess and the splendid transnational in the Harlem renaissance Inés Valdez
Part III. 'Uplift' Renewed: Religion, Protest and Education: 8. 'The sinful babel of the airshaft': Rudolph fisher's fiction and religion, urban space and modernity in the Harlem renaissance Rachel Farebrother
9. Marcus Garvey: Popular culture and black liberation Heather D. Russell
10. Progression or reversion of the black race?: Historically black colleges in Nella Larsen's Quicks and Angela Watkins
Part IV. Serial Reading: Magazines and Periodical Culture: 11. The midnight motion picture company goes to Europe: The Harlem renaissance and global white supremacy Adam McKible
12. African American magazine modernism John K. Young.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]