The Black Humanist Tradition in Anti-Racist Literature: A Fragile Hope

Description

This book presents an intellectual history and theoretical exploration of black humanism since the civil rights era. Humanism is a human-centered approach to life that considers human beings to be responsible for the world and its course of history. Both the heavily theistic climate in the United States as well as the dominance of the Black Church are responsible for black humanism’s existence in virtual oblivion. For those who believe the world to be one without supernatural interventions, human action matters greatly and is the only possible mode for change. Humanists are thus committed to promoting the public good through human effort rather than through faith. Black humanism originates from the lived experiences of African Americans in a white hegemonic society. Viewed from this perspective, black humanist cultural expressions are a continuous push to imagine and make room for alternative life options in a racist society.  Alexandra Hartmann counters religion’s hegemonic grasp and uncovers black humanism as a small yet significant tradition in recent African American culture and cultural politics by studying its impact on African American literature and the ensuing anti-racist potentials. The book demonstrates that black humanism regards subjectivity as embodied and is thus a worldview that is characterized by a fragile hope regarding the possibility of progress – racial and otherwise – in the country. Acknowledgments Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Notes on Western Humanism and Black Humanism Black Humanism and Literature Overview of Chapters References Chapter 2: Embodiment, Agency, and Conceptions of Hope in Black Humanist Thought Embodied Subjectivity and Embodied Blackness Embodied Trauma Resisting (Through) Embodiment: Conceptualizing Agency Exposing Whiteness: Implications for Undoing White Supremacy Hope in the Black Humanist Tradition References Chapter 3: Self-Reliance Towards Deep Democracy: Theorizing Racial Embodiment in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man Challenging Ideologies, Advancing Self-Reliance Agency and Human Existence “I Had No Dignity:” Self-Conception and the (Lived) Body “I Am Invisible, Understand:” Uncovering the Logic of Racism “I Speak for You:” The Relationality of Action References Chapter 4: The (Im)Possibility of Interracial Relationships in John A. Williams’ Night Song The Structural Is in the (Inter)Personal Reflections on Whiteness and the Inescapability of White Privilege Imagining a Humanist World: Love and Solidarity in the Face of Betrayal References Chapter 5: Subjectivities Between Structure and Agency: Enlightenment Humanism, Gendered Trauma, and Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (Challenging) The Logic of Enlightenment Humanism Looking at Embodied Whiteness Black Feminist Futurity: Agency, Healing, and the Self in Community References Chapter 6: Precarity, Mourning, and Notes of Consolation in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing The Materiality of Existence and Black Precarity in Historical Continuity On Black Sons, Motherhood, and Conceptions of Responsibility Mourning Against Social Death: Affection, Touch, and Song References Chapter 7: Epilogue: Writing Beyond Pessimism References Index