A History of the Harlem Renaissance

Rachel Farebrother, Miriam Thaggert

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781108493574
• eBook ISBN: 9781108639101
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The Harlem Renaissance was the most influential single movement in African American literary history. The movement laid the groundwork for subsequent African American literature, and had an enormous impact on later black literature world-wide. In its attention to a wide range of genres and forms – from the roman à clef and the bildungsroman, to dance and book illustrations – this book seeks to encapsulate and analyze the eclecticism of Harlem Renaissance cultural expression. It aims to re-frame conventional ideas of the New Negro movement by presenting new readings of well-studied authors, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, alongside analysis of topics, authors, and artists that deserve fuller treatment. An authoritative collection on the major writers and issues of the period, A History of the Harlem Renaissance takes stock of nearly a hundred years of scholarship and considers what the future augurs for the study of 'the New Negro'.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Revising a Renaissance
• Part I Re-reading the New Negro
• Part II Experimenting with the New Negro
• Part III Re-mapping the New Negro
• Part IV Performing the New Negro
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• Index