Black Utopia

Within the history of African-American struggle against racist oppression that often verges on dystopia, black utopian artists and thinkers offer powerful visions of ways of being that are built on radical concepts of justice and freedom. Here, Zamalin offers a groundbreaking examination of African-American visions of social transformation and their counterutopian counterparts.

List of contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Utopia and Black American Thought
1. Martin Delany's Experiment in Escape
2. Turn-of-the-Century Black Literary Utopianism
3. W. E. B. Du Bois's World of Utopian Intimacy
4. George S. Schuyler, Irony, and Utopia
5. Richard Wright's Black Power and Anticolonial Antiutopianism
6. Sun Ra and Cosmic Blackness
7. Samuel Delany and the Ambiguity of Utopia
8. Octavia Butler and the Politics of Utopian Transcendence
Conclusion: Black Utopia and the Contemporary Political Imagination
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Alex Zamalin

Summary

Alex Zamalin offers a groundbreaking examination of African American visions of utopia and their counterutopian counterparts. Considering figures linked to racial separatism, postracialism, anticolonialism, Pan-Africanism, and Afrofuturism, he argues that the black utopian tradition continues to challenge American political thought and culture.

Product details

• Authors: Alex Zamalin, Zamalin Alex
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.08.2019
• EAN: 9780231187411
• ISBN: 978-0-231-18741-1
• No. of pages: 192
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 15 mm
• Subjects: Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; USA, PHILOSOPHY / Political, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, Nationalism, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Utopias, United States of America, USA, Ethnic groups and multicultural studies, History of the Americas, Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies, HISTORY / African American & Black, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / African American & Black, African american and black literary criticism