Harlem Renaissance 1919-1940
A selective list of online literary criticism on the Harlem Renaissance, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Web Sites
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cultural and historical background
"Power of Prose: Harlem Renaissance." An introduction to the Harlem Renaissance and its writers. A PBS educational site.
"African American Odyssey." An online exhibit from the Library of Congress, with pictures of original documents and commentary, with sections on Slavery; Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period; Abolition; The Civil War; Reconstruction; Booker T. Washington Era; World War I and Postwar Society; the Great Depression, New Deal, and World War II; Civil Rights.
On Alain Locke, whose 1925 anthology, The New Negro: An Interpretation initiated the New Negro Renaissance. From educational publisher Heath.
"A brief guide to the Harlem Renaissance." It is brief. From the Academy of American Poets.
"Harlem Renaissance." A PBS roundtable on the Harlem Renaissance asks three professors to discuss questions such as "What was it about the 1920s and 30s that opened up the pathways toward African-American cultural expression?" and "Are we still experiencing the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance today?" Participants are Profs. Jeffrey C. Stewart, William Drummond, and Richard Powell. 2 Feb. 1980.
Janken, Kenneth R. "African American and Francophone black intellectuals during the Harlem Renaissance." On the importance of Europe and especially France in African American intellectual life between the two world wars. Historian Spring 1998 [first half of article only].
The Harlem Renaissance: a guide to materials at the British Library, by Jean Kemble, 1997. An introduction to the Harlem Renaissance, and an extensive list of writers, artists, and musicians associated with it.
Gosselin, Adrienne Johnson. "Beyond the Harlem Renaissance: The Case for Black Modernist Writers." Remarking that that "American literary history views the Harlem Renaissance as an aesthetic movement contemporaneous with, but separate from, Euro-American Modernism," Gosselin recommends theorizing American modernism. Orig. pub. in Modern Language Studies.
reviews and blurbs
Anderson, Paul Allen. A review of Deep River: Music and Memory in Harlem Renaissance Thought (Duke Univ. Press, 2001). Reviewer Eric Porter writes, "In this important book, Paul Allen Anderson explores the development of ideas about black music during a period that witnessed its growing visibility and impact on American culture and society." African American Review Spring 2003.
Barnes, Paula C., ed. Publisher's site for New Voices on the Harlem Renaissance: Essays on Race, Gender, and Literary Discourse (Fairleigh Dickinson UP 2005).
Butler, Robert. A review of Contemporary African American Fiction: The Open Journey (1998). Covers Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Native Son (1940), Invisible Man (1952), The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Faith and the Good Thing (1974), Flight to Canada (1976), Song of Solomon (1977), and Dessa Rose (1986); and Parable of the Sower (1993). According to the reviewer, "in traveling again over the familiar terrain of these nine more or less canonical works, Robert Butler produces something of considerable value for understanding contemporary, as well as the last century's, writing, namely, a challenge to older interpretations of African American narrative informed by a revised conception of how literary tradition is formed in kinship and difference." African American Review Winter 2000, reviewed by John M. Reilly.
Fabre, Geneviève and Michel Feith. Publisher's site for Temples for Tomorrow: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance (Indiana UP 2001). An international perspective on the Harlem Renaissance.
Gallego, Mar. A review of Passing Novels in the Harlem Renaissance: Identity, Politics and Textual Strategies (2003). Reviewed in African American Review Winter 2004 by Zhou Yupei.
Soto, Michael, ed. Publisher's site for Teaching the Harlem Renaissance: Course Design and Classroom Strategies (Peter Lang, 2008).
bibliographies & teaching resources
"Race Relations in the U.S." A list of recommended books on literature and race relations, from the American Association of Univ. Presses.
"Harlem Renaissance (Bibliography)." A listing of 60 books on the Harlem Renaissance; clicking on a book's name brings up a commentary and summary of the content. From Collaborative Bibliographies, Georgetown Univ.
"Black History Month." Teaching resources: biographies of more than fifty African Americans, and other teaching materials. From educational publisher Gale.
"Guide to the Federal Theatre Project Playscript and Radioscript Collection." Includes works by Upton Sinclair, Orson Welles, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Arent, and Langston Hughes. Special Collections and Archives, George Mason Univ.
The Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora. The web site for ASWAD, an interdisciplinary association of scholars studying the dispersal of people of African descent throughout the world.
Poets & Writers
Fauset, Jessie
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