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With its epicenter in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, the Harlem Renaissance was a singularly influential period of African American history. A cultural revolution that combined artistic expression with political activism, the movement would help to heighten social consciousness and foster racial pride.
A Companion to the Harlem Renaissance presents a comprehensive guide to the literature and culture of the unprecedented artistic flourishing that took place in the African diasporic community of the United States from the end of World War I to the middle of the 1930s. Featuring original contributions from eminent and emerging scholars of the era, chapters critically explore numerous themes relating to the origins, evolution, aesthetics, genres, and historical contexts of the Harlem Renaissance. Combining primary texts and contemporaneous accounts with innovative new perspectives, initial essays explore the historic and philosophical underpinnings of the "New Negro" Movement, followed by selections addressing canonical authors and minor writers who emerged during the period. Further essays examine salon culture and the influence of music and dance on literature; themes relating to race, identity, and sexual politics; and the Harlem Renaissance as a global movement. A final series of essays considers the enduring influence of the Harlem Renaissance in the latter twentieth century and into the new millennium. Combining a remarkable breadth of coverage with impeccable scholarship presented in an engaging manner, A Companion to the Harlem Renaissance is an essential resource to understanding this transformative time in black history.
List of contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction: Harlem as Shorthand: The Persistent Value of the Harlem Renaissance 1
Cherene Sherrard-Johnson Part I Foundations 15 1 What Renaissance?: A Deep Genealogy of Black Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York City 17
Carla L. Peterson 2 Postbellum, Pre-Harlem: Black Writing before the Renaissance 35
Andreá N. Williams 3 Harlem Nights: Expressive Culture, Popular Performance, and the New Negro 51
Jayna Brown 4 The New Negro and the New South 65
Erin D. Chapman Part II Spotlight: Readings and Genre 81 5 "All the loving words I never dared to speak": Angelina Weld Grimké's Sapphic Modernism 83
Maureen Honey 6 Modernism and the Urban Frontier in the Work of Dorothy West and Helene Johnson 103
Cynthia Davis and Verner D. Mitchell 7 Blueprints for Negro Reading: Sterling Brown's Study Guides 119
Sonya Posmentier 8 Fashioning Internationalism in Jessie Redmon Fauset's Writing 137
Elizabeth M. Sheehan 9 The New Negro Iconoclast, or, The Curious Case of George Samuel Schuyler 155
Ivy G. Wilson 10 Nella Larsen's Spiritual Strivings 171
Kathy L. Glass 11 Pastoral and the Problem of Place in Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows 187
Jennifer Chang 12 Gwendolyn Bennett: A Leading Voice of the Harlem Renaissance 203
Belinda Wheeler 13 Reconsidering the Literary Career of Chicago's Zara Wright 219
Rynetta Davis 14 "Betwixt and between": Zora Neale Hurston In-and Out-of Harlem 231
Carla Kaplan Part III Salon Culture: The Visual, Performative, and Expressive Arts 249 15 Salon Cultures and Spaces of Culture Edification 251
André m. Carrington 16 The Sensuous Harlem Renaissance: Sexuality and Queer Culture 267
Shane Vogel 17 Changing Optics: Harlem Renaissance Theater and Performance 285
Soyica Diggs Colbert 18 Phonography, Race Records, and the Blues Poetry of Langston Hughes 301
Lisa Hollenbach 19 Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Sculpture of the Harlem Renaissance 317
Kirsten Pai Buick Part IV Interracialism 337 20 Authenticity and the Boundaries of Blackness 339
J. Martin Favor 21 Black Marxism and the Literary Left 351
Gary Edward Holcomb 22 "Light, bright and damn near white": Representations of Mixed Race in the Harlem Renaissance 369
Michele Elam Part V Beyond Harlem: New Geographies and Lasting Influences 385 23 The Aesthetics of Anticipation: The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement 387
Margo Natalie Crawford 24 The "Lost Years" or a "Decade of Progress"?: African American Writers and the Second World War 403
Vaughn Rasberry 25 Ethiopia in the Verse of the Late Harlem Renaissance 423
Nadia Nurhussein 26 Mapping the Harlem Renaissance in the Americas 441
Michael Soto 27 Virtual Harlem: Experiencing the New Negro Renaissance 457
Bryan Carter Index 473
About the author
Cherene Sherrard-Johnson is the Sally Mead Hands-Bascom Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of
Dorothy West's Paradise: A Biography of Class and Color (2012),
Portraits of the New Negro Woman: Visual and Literary Culture in the Harlem Renaissance (2007), and the annotated edition of Jessie Redmon Fauset's
Comedy: American Style (2011).
