This book expands the discourse on the Harlem Renaissance into more recent crucial areas for literary scholars, college instructors, graduate students, upper-level undergraduates, and Harlem Renaissance aficionados. These selected essays, authored by mostly new critics in Harlem Renaissance studies, address critical discourse in race, cultural studies, feminist studies, identity politics, queer theory, and rhetoric and pedagogy. While some canonical writers are included, such as Langston Hughes and Alain Locke, others such as Dorothy West, Jessie Fauset, and Wallace Thurman have equal footing. Illustrations from several books and journals help demonstrate the vibrancy of this era. Australia Tarver is Associate Professor of English at Texas Christian University. Paula C. Barnes is an Associate Professor of English at Hampton University.

Nathan Irvin Huggins showcases more than 120 selections from the political writings and arts of the Harlem Renaissance. Featuring works by such greats as Langston Hughes, Aaron Douglas, and Gwendolyn Bennett, here is an extraordinary look at the remarkable outpouring of African-American literature and art during the 1920s.

"Heretofore scholars have not been willing—perhaps, even been unable for many reasons both academic and personal—to identify much of the Harlem Renaissance work as same-sex oriented. . . . An important book." —Jim Elledge This groundbreaking study explores the Harlem Renaissance as a literary phenomenon fundamentally shaped by same-sex-interested men. Christa Schwarz focuses on Countée Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Richard Bruce Nugent and explores these writers' sexually dissident or gay literary voices. The portrayals of men-loving men in these writers' works vary significantly. Schwarz locates in the poetry of Cullen, Hughes, and McKay the employment of contemporary gay code words, deriving from the Greek discourse of homosexuality and from Walt Whitman. By contrast, Nugent—the only "out" gay Harlem Renaissance artist—portrayed men-loving men without reference to racial concepts or Whitmanesque codes. Schwarz argues for contemporary readings attuned to the complex relation between race, gender, and sexual orientation in Harlem Renaissance writing.

A portrait of the vibrant world of 1920s Harlem, with writings by Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Walter White, and more. The Harlem Renaissance was a landmark period in African American history—a time when black poets, musicians, intellectuals, civil rights activists, and others changed the social and cultural landscape in enduring ways. Its influence went far beyond the confines of uptown New York City, as it incorporated voices from the Great Migration, in which African Americans moved north in vast numbers; and elevated artists and thinkers who would become iconic figures in not only Black history, but also American history. Now considered the definitive work of the Harlem Renaissance, The New Negro features fiction, poetry, and essays that shaped the era. “A book of unusual interest and value.” —The New York Times “[Locke was] the godfather of the Harlem Renaissance.” —Publishers Weekly “Alain Locke is a critical—and complex—figure in any discussion of African-American intellectual history.” —Kirkus Reviews

Newly recovered from the vaults of the Library of Congress, this rich and varied collection of 45 essays recall the vibrant world of 1930s Harlem, and documents the everyday life in the thriving African-American community.

This collection of writings from the black movement press of the twenties and on through the thirties provides valuable insight into the major political and ideological currents among black groups of that time, as well as the means of persuasion employed by black journalists during this significant era.

This first full-length biography of Harrison offers a portrait of a man ahead of his time in synthesizing race and class struggles in the U.S. and a leading influence on better known activists from Marcus Garvey to A. Philip Randolph. Harrison emigrated from St. Croix in 1883 and went on to become a foremost organizer for the Socialist Party in New York, the editor of the Negro World, and founder and leader of the World War I-era New Negro movement. Harrison s enormous political and intellectual appetites were channeled into his work as an orator, writer, political activist, and critic. He was an avid bibliophile, reportedly the first regular black book reviewer, who helped to develop the public library in Harlem into an international center for research on black culture. But Harrison was a freelancer so candid in his criticism of the establishment-black and white-that he had few allies or people interested in protecting his legacy. Historian Perry s detailed research brings to life a transformative figure who has been little recognized for his contributions to progressive race and class politics. Copyright Booklist Reviews 2008.