Rereading the Harlem Renaissance

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Rereading the Harlem Renaissance Race, Class, and Gender in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy West

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Sharon L. Jones

Book Code: BGM2326

ISBN: 0-313-36130-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-36130-2

DOI:

176 pages, photos

Greenwood Press

Publication: 12/30/2002

List Price: $20.00 (UK Sterling Price: £11.95)

Availability: Not yet published. (Estimated publication date, 12/30/2002)

Media Type: Hardcover

Also Available: Ebook

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies

Series Number: 207

Reviews:

With this volume Jones remedies the relative neglect of Fauset and West, according them equal attention with the now-familiar Hurston. And in extending her discussion of Hurston beyond Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jones broadens the reader's understanding of this most famous of the Harlem Renaissance's many formidable women. Recommended. All academic collections, lower-division undergraduate level and above.
—Choice July/August 2003
[I]f any of us has ever questioned the centrality of Hurston to today's study of literature, this very good book provides emphatic positive answers.
—American Literature September 2003

Description: African American writers of the Harlem Renaissance generally fall into three aesthetic categories: "the folk," which emphasizes oral traditions, African American English, rural settings, and characters from lower socioeconomic levels; "the bourgeois," which privileges characters from middle class backgrounds; and "the proletarian," which favors overt critiques of oppression by contending that art should be an instrument of propaganda. Depending on critical assumptions regarding what constitutes authentic African American literature, some writers have been valorized, others dismissed. This rereading of the Harlem Renaissance gives special attention to Fauset, Hurston, and West. Jones argues that all three aesthetics influence each of their works, that they have been historically mislabeled, and that they share a drive to challenge racial, class, and gender oppression. The introduction provides a detailed historical overview of the Harlem Renaissance and the prevailing aesthetics of the period. Individual chapters analyze the works of Hurston, West, and Fauset to demonstrate how the folk, bourgeois, and proletarian aesthetics figure into their writings. The volume concludes by discussing the writers in relation to contemporary African American women authors.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Deconstructing the Black Bourgeoisie: Subversions and Diversions in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset
"How It Feels to Be Colored Me": Social Protest in the Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston
A Closet Revolutionary: The Politics of Representation in the Fiction of Dorothy West
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 2002067840

LCC Class: PS153

Dewey Class: 813


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