Voices of the Harlem Renaissance
Session Organizer: Kelli A. Larson
University of St. Thomas
kalarson1@stthomas.edu

“Why don’t you get acquainted with your race?” “The Bookshelf,” The Forgotten Readers of Chicago, and The Making of Black Middlebrow Culture in the 1920s

“The Bookshelf,” a popular book-review column and self-styled “literary club” in the Chicago Defender, is a window on black literary politics and cultural identities of the 1920s. I explore its responses to readers’ literary agendas and the parallels between its “literary club” feature and the contemporaneous Book-of-the-Month Club, and I investigate its place in the cultural skirmishes as America carved out a middlebrow terrain. The Bookshelf was the by-product of debates over African American assimilation and education, and I set it alongside the book-review columns in the politically radical Harlem Renaissance periodicals, the white press, and the other black weekly newspapers. I examine the cultural agenda of the column’s producers, the column’s role as an agent of acculturation, the likely effect of the Great Migration and the Chicago race riots on The Bookshelf, and the realm of discourse about the black reading public’s “snobbishness”. The Bookshelf’s middlebrow reading community represents an alternative black cultural identity that has been largely ignored by historians and literary critics, and my paper opens up a new aspect on the African American literary scene of the 1920s, usually only associated with Harlem and the high-brow.

Zoe Trodd
Harvard University
trodd@fas.harvard.edu

White Blackness: Albinism and the Reconstruction of Race

The Harlem Renaissance critic, satirist and author George S. Schuyler, in an attempt to escape the prevailing essentialist conception of race, destabilizes the binary logic of America’s race problem with the strategic introduction of the Black albino character. Black No More is a mythic portrayal of a real racial anomaly which haunts the borders of both the Black and the White community by continually threatening to breakdown the familiar boundaries of racial identity. This presentation utilizes Derrida’s concept of the “pharmakon” (that which destabilizes the boundaries of binary opposites) to illuminate the subversive and emancipatory properties of Black albinism. Albinism as a floating signifier facilitates a unique theoretical interrogation of race in that it fractures and fragments determinist theories of race, identity and community. I utilize George Schuyler’s provocative novel to illustrate the manner in which these socially constructed elements of self are restructured, resulting in race is not only being demystified but also reasserted as an historical phenomena and ideological construct of the ruling class. This presentation demonstrates the manner in which Black albinism, with its powerful racial ambiguity and paradoxical phenotypic definition destabilizes race; reconstitute self and other, and repositions Schuyler as a vanguard of critical race theory.

Vida A. Robertson
Miami University, Ohio
robertv1@muohio.edu

Surviving the Taint of Plagiarism: Nella Larsen’s ‘Sanctuary’ and Sheila Kaye-Smith’s "Mrs. Adis"

While at the top of her professional career, Nella Larsen became embroiled in an ugly plagiarism controversy, accused of appropriating the work of British writer, Sheila Kaye-Smith. The case involved Larsen’s 1930 short story “Sanctuary” and Kaye-Smith’s 1922 “Mrs. Adis.” Though her editors exonerated Larsen, the consequences for her career were devastating; she never published again. Considering that the story is important in light of Larsen’s limited oeuvre, critical commentary has been disappointing. The handful of analyses and commentaries suggests that critics may be shying away from the text because of its blemished history. However, such oversight may be unjust in light of the story’s literary merit. The melodramatic “Mrs. Adis” easily falls into the category of sentimental fiction, something that Larsen avoids despite their similar plot lines. Larsen’s text leaves no room for tender emotions; its sharply verbalized anger and overt animosity belie the message of the Golden Rule put forth in Kaye-Smith’s story. Jesus’ exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount to “love your enemies” is subverted in Larsen’s depiction of the spiting of white justice and the promotion of black solidarity. Larsen’s is the far superior text and as such deserves the strong critical analysis afforded her other works.

Kelli A. Larson
University of St. Thomas
KALarson1 @ stthomas.edu

Braithwaite and the American Anthologies: An Ironic Omission?

William Stanley Braithwaite, long considered—if considered at all—an anthologist, bridges many issues in the development of American literature. Braithwaite’s poetry reflects the idea of passing that we often see in more anthologized writers such as Charles Chestnutt and Nella Larsen. Although he dabbled in all genres as a writer—and some of his short works and criticism are worthy of our attention—he was known mainly as an anthologist, editing a variety of compilations of poetry and publishing many significant African American and white authors. Given the range of authors with which he worked, Braithwaite’s pivotal role in African American literature remains comparable Howell’s role in American literature. As Howell’s championed realist authors, Braithwaite served as a pivotal leader for the promotion of African American authors during the Harlem Renaissance. In this paper, I examine a cross section of Braithwaite’s work, arguing for many links to the typical “marquee authors.” As Braithwaite stated, “ our literature for generations, perhaps centuries, will have to be symbolized by the melting pot, not by the tap-root.” It seems ironic that anthologies exclude Braithwaite from the very tradition in which he believed—the anthologizing and dissemination of a national literature.

Michael Modarelli
University of Tennessee
mmodarel@tennessee.edu