Thinking Through Crisis: Depression-Era Black Literature, Theory, and Politics

James Edward Ford

Published by Fordham University Press 2019

Thinking Through Crisis

Depression-Era Black Literature, Theory, and Politics

James Edward Ford

In the series Commonalities

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823286935

Overview
Contents

About this book

In Thinking Through Crisis, James Edward Ford III examines the works of Richard Wright, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes during the 1930s in order to articulate a materialist theory of trauma. Ford highlights the dark proletariat’s emergence from the multitude apposite to white supremacist agendas. In these works, Ford argues, proletarian, modernist, and surrealist aesthetics transform fugitive slaves, sharecroppers, leased convicts, levee workers, and activist intellectuals into protagonists of anti-racist and anti-capitalist movements in the United States.

Thinking Through Crisis intervenes in debates on the 1930s, radical subjectivity, and states of emergency. It will be of interest to scholars of American literature, African American literature, proletarian literature, black studies, trauma theory, and political theory.

Studies literary representations of fugitive slaves, sharecroppers, leased convicts, levee workers, and activist intellectuals against the backdrop of white supremacy.

Author / Editor information

Ford James Edward :

James Edward Ford III is Associate Professor of English at Occidental College. His writings on the aesthetics of black radicalism, black popular culture, and political theory have appeared in the journals Novel, Biography, Cultural Critique, College Literature, New Centennial Review, ASAP Journal, and multiple edited collections. He is currently working on “Phillis, the Black Swan: Disheveling the Origins” and “Hip-Hop’s Late Style: Disheveling the Origins,” two projects that rethink the origins and ends of black American cultural production.James Edward Ford III is Associate Professor of English at Occidental College. His writings on the aesthetics of black radicalism, black popular culture, and political theory have appeared in the journals Novel, Biography, Cultural Critique, College Literature, New Centennial Review, ASAP Journal, and multiple edited collections. He is currently working on “Phillis, the Black Swan: Disheveling the Origins” and “Hip-Hop’s Late Style: Disheveling the Origins,” two projects that rethink the origins and ends of black American cultural production.

Reviews

This is an excellent study of the exigencies of black politics during the Depression era. Highly recommended.

Fred Moten, New York University:
James Edward Ford's erudition is critical and compositional. Thinking Through Crisis teaches us to reread texts that are, now, in his placement of them alongside one another, emanations of a larger, refolded, unfolding topography of twentieth century radical thought. This is a welcome and unique accomplishment. Ford is a sharp and adventurous thinker and Thinking Through Crisis expresses his gifts with profound, difficult beauty.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: From Being to Unrest, from Objectivity to Motion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Notebook 1. Down by the Riverside: Richard Wright, the 1927 Flood, and the Citizen-Refugee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
Notebook 2. “Crusade for Justice”: Ida B. Wells and the Power of the Multitude Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
Notebook 3. W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction: Theorizing Divine Violence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
Notebook 4. Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain: An Anthropology of Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Notebook 5. The New Day: Notes on Education and the Dark Proletariat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	244
Conclusion: From Being to Unrest, from Objectivity to Motion— A Race for Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	355

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 336
Keywords: African American Literature; Black Studies; Crisis; Great Depression; Proletariat; Trauma Theory

eBook

Published: November 5, 2019
ISBN: 9780823286935