New Perspectives on James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man

Description

New insights on an enduring classic of African American literature James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) exemplified the ideal of the American public intellectual as a writer, educator, songwriter, diplomat, key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and first African American executive of the NAACP. Originally published anonymously in 1912, Johnson’s novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is considered one of the foundational works of twentieth-century African American literature, and its themes and forms have been taken up by other writers, from Ralph Ellison to Teju Cole. Johnson’s novel provocatively engages with political and cultural strains still prevalent in American discourse today, and it remains in print over a century after its initial publication. New Perspectives contains fresh essays that analyze the book’s reverberations, the contexts within which it was created and received, the aesthetic and intellectual developments of its author, and its continued relevance in American literature and global culture. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 CONTENTS......Page 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 10 INTRODUCTION: Biography of an Author, Biography of a Text: James Weldon Johnson’s Ultimate American Work......Page 14 PART ONE: CULTURES OF READING, CULTURES OF WRITING: CANONS AND AUTHENTICITY......Page 34 “Stepping across the Confines of Language and Race”: Brander Matthews, James Weldon Johnson, and Racial Cosmopolitanism......Page 36 How The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Became an Unlikely Literary Classic......Page 54 Authenticity and Transparency in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man......Page 77 PART TWO: RELATIONAL TROPES: TRANSNATIONALISM, FUTURITY, AND THE EX-COLORED MAN......Page 98 The Futurity of Miscegenation: James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood......Page 100 Blackness Written, Erased, Rewritten: James Weldon Johnson, Teju Cole, and the Palimpsest of Modernity......Page 125 Dead Ambitions and Repeated Interruptions: Economies of Race and Temporality in The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man......Page 141 PART THREE: POETICS: SOUND, AFFECT, AND THE ARCHIVE......Page 158 The Autobiography as Ars Poetica: Satire and Rhythmic Exegesis in “Saint Peter Relates an Incident”......Page 160 The Composer versus the “Perfessor”: Writing Race and (Rag)Time......Page 182 James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Archived and Live......Page 202 PART FOUR: LEGACIES......Page 224 W. E. B. Du Bois, Barack Obama, and the Search for Race: School House Blues......Page 226 AFTERWORD: The Ex-Colored Man for a New Century......Page 243 SUGGESTED FURTHER READING......Page 252 CONTRIBUTORS......Page 256 D......Page 258 M......Page 259 S......Page 260 Y......Page 261