Richard Wright in a Post-racial Imaginary

In African American fiction, Richard Wright was one of the most significant and influential authors of the twentieth century. Richard Wright in a Post-Racial Imaginary analyses Wright's work in relation to contemporary racial and social issues, bringing voices of established and emergent Wright scholars into dialogue with each other.

The essays in this volume show how Wright's best work asks central questions about national alienation as well as about international belonging and the trans-national gaze. Race is here assumed as a superimposed category, rather than a biological reality, in keeping with recent trends in African-American studies. Wright's fiction and almost all of his non-fiction lift beyond the mainstays of African-American culture to explore the potentialities and limits of black trans-nationalism. Wright's trans-native status, his perpetual "outsidedness" mixed with the "essential humanness" of his activist and literary efforts are at the core of the innovative approaches to his work included here.

William Dow is Professor of American Literature at Université Paris-Est (UPEM), France, and Adjunct Professor of English at the American University of Paris. His previous publications include, as co-editor, Richard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century (2011). He is an Associate Editor of Literary Journalism Studies.

Alice Craven is Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature and Film Studies at American University of Paris, France, and Directeur de theses, Master program, in the Department of English at Institut Catholique de Paris, France. She is co-editor of Richard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century (2011).

Yoko Nakamura is a graduate student at the American University of Paris, France.

Foreword: Amritjit Singh

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Alice Mikal Craven, William E. Dow

Part 1: Wright as Global Intellectual and Racial Reformer

James Smethurst, "After Modernism: Richard Wright Interprets the Black Belt."
Cynthia Tolentino, "Sociological Interests, Racial Reform: Richard Wright's Intellectual of Color."
Mark Mvé Bekale, "The Negro Intellectual and the Tragic Sense of Hybridity: A Study in Postcolonial Existentialism."
Anthony Dawahare, "Richard Wright's Native Son and the Dialectics of Black Experience."

Part 2: The Pursuit of Sovereignty in Wright's Political and Artistic Odyssey

Laurence Cossu-Beaumont, "Richard Wright and His Editors: A Work under the Influence? From the Signifyin(g) Rebel to the Exiled Intellectual."
Shoshana Milgram Knapp, "Recontextualizing Richard Wright's The Outsider: Hugo, Dostoevsky, Max Eastman, and Ayn Rand."
Barbara Foley, "'A Dramatic Picture . . . of Woman from Feudalism to Fascism': Richard Wright's Black Hope."

Part 3: Wright's Other Destinies: Gothicism and the Neo-Baroque

Charles Scruggs, "'Forged in Injustice': The Gothic Motif in the Fiction of Ernest Hemingway and Richard Wright."
William E. Dow, "Pulp Gothicism in Richard Wright's The Outsider."
Michel Feith, "Working the Underground Seam: Richard Wright's 'The Man Who Lived Underground' in the Light of Percival Everett's Zulus."

Part 4: Richard Wright's Sweet Airs: Experiments with Performance Genres

Bruce Allen Dick, "Forgotten Chapter: Richard Wright, Playwrights, and the Modern Theater."
Steven C. Tracy, "A Wright to Sing the Blues: King Joe's Punch."

Part 5: Transnational Shifts: Silence and Sentiment

Alice Mikal Craven, "Richard Wright's 'Island' of Silence in The Long Dream."
Sudhi Rajiv, "Expanding Metaphors of Marginalization: Richard Wright, Sharankumar Limbale, and a Post-Caste Imaginary."
Sandy Alexandre, "Culmination in Miniature: Late Style and the Essence of Richard Wright's Haiku."

Contributors
Index

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