Race and New Modernisms

A tour de force! Race and New Modernisms succeeds in circuiting race through its primitivizing and exoticizing deployment in canonical modernism to a series of connected sites (the Caribbean, the US South, Harlem, and Paris) and all the while presenting a self-reflexive, savvy interrogation of the ways in which we "know" race. They demonstrate that modernism could not have existed without its racial identifications, not only in its art forms, but also in its rhetoric of nationhood, civilization, cosmopolitanism, and otherness. Even better, they show how race is not an inert or self-evident thing, but a complex and shifting system of social organization that is struggled over at every turn, from the beginnings of modernism until today. This critical primer will be indispensable for teaching and research on race and modernism for years to come. * Laura Winkiel, Associate Professor of English, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA * This is a lucid guide to the complex relationship between conceptions of race and the diverse cultures of modernism. Simmons and Crank invite readers to consider multiple aspects of race in the early 20th century, demonstrating that any understanding of regional, national, and global modernisms is inseparable from an understanding of racial discourses. -- Urmila Seshagiri, Associate Professor, University of Tennessee Humanities Center

James A. Crank is Associate Professor at the University of Alabama, USA. His books include Understanding Sam Shepard (2012), New Approaches to Gone with the Wind (2015), and Understanding Randall Kenan (2019). K. Merinda Simmons is Associate Professor at the University of Alabama, USA. Her books include Changing the Subject: Writing Women Across the African Diaspora (2014) and The Trouble with Post-Blackness (co-edited with Houston A. Baker, Jr., 2015).

Acknowledgements Introduction: Coming to Terms: Identifying Race and New Modernisms Ch. 1: Lost Languages: Ex-Pat Primitivism and European Modernity in Translation Ch. 2: The Birth of Many Nations: Imperial Modernisms in the Caribbean Ch. 3: Re-Turning South (Again): Renaissances and Regionalism Ch. 4: The Art of Ideology: Black Aesthetics and Politics in Modernist Harlem Ch. 5: Selling Otherness: Racial Performance and Modernist Marketing Coda: Who's the Matter Works Cited Works Consulted