The Mystery of American Identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 148-175
Author(s):  
Cheryl A. Wall
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
American Culture ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
American Identity ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
Invisible Man ◽  
Theory And Criticism ◽  
The Individual

Although best known for his novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison’s essays, and the array of cultural and political agendas which prompt their conception, are integral to American literary theory and criticism. His essays defined the terms for ongoing debates around nineteenth and twentieth century American fiction, modernist aesthetics, and American culture. This chapter charts the various cultural, literary, and political interventions made by Ellison’s essays. Like James Baldwin (chapter 4), Ellison confronts the question of American identity, but he recasts it in terms of culture rather than of the individual. Through Ellison’s use of the vernacular process, which blends high and low styles, he maps cultural concerns onto the political stage. By emphasizing the cultural contributions made by African Americans, Ellison’s work complicates, reworks, and redefines our understanding of American culture.

In the Kingdom of Whomever: Baldwin’s Method

Empty Houses ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kurnick
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Generic Difference

James Baldwin is not only one of the more notable Anglophone twentieth-century novelists to attempt continually and with minimal success to enter the theater. He is also one of the major inheritors of the aesthetic and political problematic we have repeatedly encountered in the course of this book. Baldwin is perhaps the most important twentieth-century novelist to seriously explore what it means to make interiority the bearer of collective desire. This chapter argues that the novel of interiority reaches an impasse and a breakthrough in the work of Baldwin precisely when the contradictions inherent in the attempt to think collective problems through sexual interiority becomes unavoidably insistent—and does so through Baldwin's negotiation with the generic difference of the theater. His career makes clear that if the novel relentlessly personalizes collective issues, its theatrical preoccupation constitutes a record of the political costs of that reduction, one that demands to be read at the level of form.

“To Build a New World”: Black American Internationalism and Palestine Solidarity

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-68
Author(s):  
Russell Rickford
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Middle East ◽  
New World ◽  
Black American ◽  
The Political ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
Political Imaginary

This essay traces the arc of Black American solidarity with Palestine, placing the phenomenon in the context of twentieth-century African American internationalism. It sketches the evolution of the political imaginary that enabled Black activists to depict African Americans and Palestinians as compatriots within global communities of dissent. For more than half a century, Black internationalists identified with Zionism, believing that the Jewish bid for a national homeland paralleled the African American freedom struggle. During the 1950s and 1960s, however, colonial aggression in the Middle East led many African American progressives to rethink the analogy. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, African American dissidents operating within the nexus of Black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Third Worldism constructed powerful theories of Afro-Palestinian kinship. In so doing, they reimagined or transcended bonds of color, positing anti-imperialist struggle, rather than racial affinity, as the precondition of camaraderie.

Military Morality Transformed: Weapons and Soldiers on the Nineteenth-Century Battlefield

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gervase Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Human Aggression ◽  
Close Supervision ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

The increased lethality of nineteenth-century “arms of precision” caused military formations to disperse in combat, transforming the ordinary soldier from a near automaton, drilled to deliver random fire under close supervision, into a moral agent who exercised a degree of choice about where, when, and how to fire his weapon. The emerging autonomy of the soldier became a central theme in contemporary tactical debates, which struggled to reconcile the desire for discipline with the individual initiative necessary on the battlefield. This tactical conundrum offers revealing insights about human aggression and mass violence. Its dark legacy was the propagation of military values into civilian society, thus paving the way for the political soldiers of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals LANGUAGES OF FREEDOM IN DECOLONISING AFRICAThe Gladstone Prize Winner

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 253-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

ABSTRACTThe ‘triumph of liberalism’ in the mid-twentieth-century west is well known and much studied. But what has it meant for the way the decolonisation of Africa has been viewed, both at the time and since? In this paper, I suggest that it has quietly but effectively shaped our understanding of African political thinking in the 1950s to 1960s. Although the nationalist framing that once led historians to neglect those aspects of the political thinking of the period which did not move in the direction of a territorial nation-state has now been challenged, we still struggle with those aspects of political thinking that were, for instance, suspicious of a focus on the individual and profoundly opposed to egalitarian visions of a post-colonial future. I argue that to understand better the history of decolonisation in the African continent, both before and after independence, while also enabling comparative work with other times and places, we need to think more carefully and sensitively about how freedom and equality were understood and argued over in local contexts.

H. L. Mencken and American Cultural Masculinism

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-398
Author(s):  
Melita Schaum
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Opinion Seeking ◽  
Definition Of

H. L. Mencken's antagonism to women's issues seems paradoxical in a man so committed to emancipation and the reexamination of conventional social roles — the very goals for which the women's movement was fighting during the early decades of the twentieth century. The apparent discord of Mencken's attacks on suffragettes, his deprecating depictions of womanhood, and his thinly veiled vilification of women as a source of cultural mediocrity have spurred critics to explain, reformulate, or deny Mencken's disturbing prejudice. Edward A. Martin quixotically suggests that Mencken only “posed as an antifeminist,” while Charles A. Fecher wonders why “today's advocates of ‘women's liberation’ have not resurrected In Defense of Women” — Mencken's lashing satire on the female in America, grossly misread by Fecher as a tribute to women's “intelligence.” But Mencken was not “posing” as an antifeminist any more than he was pretending to be anti-Philistine. His views of women were not only consistent with his own cultural philosophy but joined a paradigm of masculinism underlying the definition of American culture during these years.This essay does not deny Mencken's considerable contributions to the scene of American letters in the early twentieth century. Alarm at the recently published diaries — which illustrate Mencken's disposition to be “careless of the decencies” in his random remarks on African-Americans and Jews — while justified, often de-contextualizes his opinions from the wider cultural atmosphere. Regarding his views on women as well, I argue that metaphoric and broadly philosophical foundations place many of his views within a larger climate of opinion seeking to link the rise of the feminine with intellectual mediocrity.

“Confraternity Among All Dark Races”

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-191
Author(s):  
Keisha N. Blain
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
West African ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Universal Negro Improvement Association ◽  
A Site ◽  
Depression Era ◽  
New Strategies

This essay examines the political activities of Mittie Maude Lena Gordon (1889-1961) in Depression-era Chicago. A former member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Gordon established her own organization, the Peace Movement of Ethiopia (PME), in 1932. While her decision to form the PME was largely driven by her interest in West African emigration, she also believed that the plight of African Americans was similar to other nonwhites globally and envisioned her organization as a vehicle to unite members of the “dark races.” Building on Garveyism while implementing new strategies of her own, she used her organization as a site for collaboration and exchange with individuals from various parts of the globe. Her activities illuminate the entangled histories of twentieth-century Black nationalism and internationalism.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Darius J. Young
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Black People ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Political

This chapter outlines the book’s mission to serve as a lens into the political activity of African Americans during the first half of the twentieth century by focusing on the strategies that Robert R. Church Jr. used to organize and empower black people through the vote. The book argues that the activism of Church and his colleagues served as the catalyst for the modern civil rights movement. This chapter also seeks to answer the question how historians know so little about someone who accomplished so much.

Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Presbyterianism in North America

2019 ◽  
pp. 49-71
Author(s):  
Sean Michael Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
New World ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Old World ◽  
Theological Debate ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Trying to account for the growth of Presbyterianism in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is not simply a matter of demographics. Rather, Presbyterianism’s expansion was the result of a developing sense of identity, centering on robust theological debate as shaped by the process of Americanization. Starting in the eighteenth century, this New World faith drew from Old World precedents and personalities, but transformed them in the new North American context. Not every Presbyterian participated in this mainstream development; African Americans, Scots Covenanters, and Canadians all found themselves to be outsiders to this developing American faith. These outsiders actually highlight the larger trend: Presbyterians more than any other denominational tradition would become a “church with the soul of the nation.” This commitment, and perhaps captivity, to American culture accounts for Presbyterian success during this period, but it would also set the stage for the fierce battles over Presbyterian identity in the twentieth century and beyond.

“Our Enemies Are Gathered Together”

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-330
Author(s):  
Mary Ellen Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Twentieth Century Music ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The City

The return of the Florentine republic (1527–30) ushered in a tense period of political upheaval. As the city faced an imperial siege and bouts of famine and plague, the government promoted a vibrant spiritual program to combat dangers to its independence. The motet flourished within this environment, but the connections between this repertory and civic life in early sixteenth-century Florence have yet to be fully explored. Since the mid-twentieth century, music historians have examined Florentine manuscript sources of the motet (the Newberry Partbooks and Vallicelliana Partbooks) and have articulated various arguments for the political significance of these collections and the individual pieces they contain. Viewed as a whole, however, the repertory does not typically express partisan support for the Medici or the republic. One underlying thread tying many of these motets together is their function within ritual celebrations, particularly in uniting the community in prayer for collective relief. Philippe Verdelot’s wartime Congregati sunt inimici nostri exemplifies the multiple performance uses of motets in Florentine ritual contexts. Its compositional design and content reveal how Florentines turned to the motet to demonstrate communal solidarity and to seek divine aid in times of crisis.

Stranger at Home

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Cheryl A. Wall
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Democratic Ideals ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The U.S

This chapter analyzes the work of one of the most influential essayists, James Baldwin. It is argued that Baldwin’s essays engage with what it means to be an American. It argues moreover that Baldwin employs the form of the essay to provide crucial insights into the relationships among citizenship, race, the nation, and identity. At the beginning of his career, Baldwin deploys what the author deems “strategic American exceptionalism”. That is, he adopted the language of American exceptionalism to advance the political interests of African Americans. While this rhetorical strategy is deployed partially to be make his views comprehensible to the larger public, it also illuminated his belief in American democratic ideals. This chapter charts Baldwin’s engagement with national and democratic discourse to provide a political indictment of the failure of the U.S. to enact these principles as it engaged black Americans. This chapter charts Baldwin’s complex and ambivalent relationship to the nation and democracy.

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