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The Resource A genealogy of literary multiculturalism, Christopher Douglas

A genealogy of literary multiculturalism, Christopher Douglas

Creator
Summary
As an anthropology student studying with Franz Boas, Zora Neale Hurston recorded African American folklore in rural central Florida, studied hoodoo in New Orleans and voodoo in Haiti, talked with the last ex-slave to survive the Middle Passage, and collected music from Jamaica. Her ethnographic work would serve as the basis for her novels and other writings in which she shaped a vision of African American Southern rural folk culture articulated through an antiracist concept of culture championed by Boas: culture as plural, relative, and long-lived. Meanwhile, a very different antiracist model of culture learned from Robert Park's sociology allowed Richard Wright to imagine African American culture in terms of severed traditions, marginal consciousness, and generation gaps. In A Genealogy of Literary Multiculturalism, Christopher Douglas uncovers the largely unacknowledged role played by ideas from sociology and anthropology in nourishing the politics and forms of minority writers from diverse backgrounds. Douglas divides the history of multicultural writing in the United States into three periods. The first, which spans the 1920s and 1930s, features minority writers such as Hurston and D'Arcy McNickle, who were indebted to the work of Boas and his attempts to detach culture from race. The second period, from 1940 to the mid-1960s, was a time of assimilation and integration, as seen in the work of authors such as Richard Wright, Jade Snow Wong, John Okada, and Ralph Ellison, who were influenced by currents in sociological thought. The third period focuses on the writers we associate with contemporary literary multiculturalism, including Toni Morrison, N. Scott Momaday, Frank Chin, Ishmael Reed, and Gloria Anzaldúa. Douglas shows that these more recent writers advocated a literary nationalism that was based on a modified Boasian anthropology and that laid the pluralist grounds for our current conception of literary multiculturalism. Ultimately, Douglas's "unified field theory" of multicultural literature brings together divergent African American, Asian American, Mexican American, and Native American literary traditions into one story: of how we moved from thinking about groups as races to thinking about groups as cultures-and then back again
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
1 online resource (vii, 372 pages)
Contents
  • Zora Neale Hurston, D'Arcy McNickle, and the culture of anthropology
  • Richard Wright, Robert Park, and the literature of sociology
  • Jade Snow Wong, Ralph Ellison, and desegregation
  • John Okada and the sociology of internment
  • Américo Paredes and the folklore of the border
  • Toni Morrison, Frank Chin, and cultural nationalisms, 1965-1975
  • N. Scott Momaday : blood and identity
  • Ishmael Reed and the search for survivals
  • Gloria Anzaldúa, Aztlán, and Aztec survivals
  • Conclusion : the multicultural complex and the incoherence of literary multiculturalism
Isbn
9780801458521
Instance
Label
A genealogy of literary multiculturalism
Title
A genealogy of literary multiculturalism
Statement of responsibility
Christopher Douglas
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
As an anthropology student studying with Franz Boas, Zora Neale Hurston recorded African American folklore in rural central Florida, studied hoodoo in New Orleans and voodoo in Haiti, talked with the last ex-slave to survive the Middle Passage, and collected music from Jamaica. Her ethnographic work would serve as the basis for her novels and other writings in which she shaped a vision of African American Southern rural folk culture articulated through an antiracist concept of culture championed by Boas: culture as plural, relative, and long-lived. Meanwhile, a very different antiracist model of culture learned from Robert Park's sociology allowed Richard Wright to imagine African American culture in terms of severed traditions, marginal consciousness, and generation gaps. In A Genealogy of Literary Multiculturalism, Christopher Douglas uncovers the largely unacknowledged role played by ideas from sociology and anthropology in nourishing the politics and forms of minority writers from diverse backgrounds. Douglas divides the history of multicultural writing in the United States into three periods. The first, which spans the 1920s and 1930s, features minority writers such as Hurston and D'Arcy McNickle, who were indebted to the work of Boas and his attempts to detach culture from race. The second period, from 1940 to the mid-1960s, was a time of assimilation and integration, as seen in the work of authors such as Richard Wright, Jade Snow Wong, John Okada, and Ralph Ellison, who were influenced by currents in sociological thought. The third period focuses on the writers we associate with contemporary literary multiculturalism, including Toni Morrison, N. Scott Momaday, Frank Chin, Ishmael Reed, and Gloria Anzaldúa. Douglas shows that these more recent writers advocated a literary nationalism that was based on a modified Boasian anthropology and that laid the pluralist grounds for our current conception of literary multiculturalism. Ultimately, Douglas's "unified field theory" of multicultural literature brings together divergent African American, Asian American, Mexican American, and Native American literary traditions into one story: of how we moved from thinking about groups as races to thinking about groups as cultures-and then back again
Member of
Action
digitized
Cataloging source
E7B
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1968-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Douglas, Christopher
Dewey number
810.9/3552
Index
index present
Language note
In English
LC call number
PS153.M56
LC item number
D68 2009eb
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
  • dictionaries
  • bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • American literature
  • American literature
  • Multiculturalism in literature
  • Minorities in literature
  • Literature and anthropology
  • Multiculturalism
  • Anthropology
  • LITERARY CRITICISM
  • American literature
  • American literature
  • Anthropology
  • Literature and anthropology
  • Minorities in literature
  • Multiculturalism
  • Multiculturalism in literature
  • United States
  • Minderheitenliteratur
  • Multikulturelle Gesellschaft
  • USA
Label
A genealogy of literary multiculturalism, Christopher Douglas
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-361) and index
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
multicolored
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Zora Neale Hurston, D'Arcy McNickle, and the culture of anthropology -- Richard Wright, Robert Park, and the literature of sociology -- Jade Snow Wong, Ralph Ellison, and desegregation -- John Okada and the sociology of internment -- Américo Paredes and the folklore of the border -- Toni Morrison, Frank Chin, and cultural nationalisms, 1965-1975 -- N. Scott Momaday : blood and identity -- Ishmael Reed and the search for survivals -- Gloria Anzaldúa, Aztlán, and Aztec survivals -- Conclusion : the multicultural complex and the incoherence of literary multiculturalism
Control code
726824335
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (vii, 372 pages)
Form of item
online
Isbn
9780801458521
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other control number
10.7591/9780801458521
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
22573/ctt4rv3b
Reproduction note
Electronic reproduction.
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)726824335
System details
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002.
Label
A genealogy of literary multiculturalism, Christopher Douglas
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-361) and index
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
multicolored
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Zora Neale Hurston, D'Arcy McNickle, and the culture of anthropology -- Richard Wright, Robert Park, and the literature of sociology -- Jade Snow Wong, Ralph Ellison, and desegregation -- John Okada and the sociology of internment -- Américo Paredes and the folklore of the border -- Toni Morrison, Frank Chin, and cultural nationalisms, 1965-1975 -- N. Scott Momaday : blood and identity -- Ishmael Reed and the search for survivals -- Gloria Anzaldúa, Aztlán, and Aztec survivals -- Conclusion : the multicultural complex and the incoherence of literary multiculturalism
Control code
726824335
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (vii, 372 pages)
Form of item
online
Isbn
9780801458521
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other control number
10.7591/9780801458521
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
22573/ctt4rv3b
Reproduction note
Electronic reproduction.
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)726824335
System details
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002.

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