James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

A selective list of online literary criticism for the nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American poet and novelist James Weldon Johnson, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, and articles published in peer and editor reviewed sources

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introduction & literary criticism

James Weldon Johnson. An introduction to Johnson from the educational publisher Gale/Cengage.

James Weldon Johnson. A web site on James Weldon Johnson includes information on his life and career, and brief excerpts of reputable critical discussions of some of his poems. Ed. Cary Nelson. Modern American Poetry (U of Illinois).

James Weldon Johnson. A brief introduction to Johnson from the Academy of American Poets

James Weldon Johnson. A very brief profile from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library

Andrade, Heather Russell "Revising critical judgments of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man." African American Review, Summer 2006

Barnhart, Bruce. Chronopolitics and race, rag-time and symphonic time in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. African American Review, Fall 2006

Fleming, Robert E. Review of The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Vol. 1, The New York Age Editorials: 1914-1923, reviewed in African American Review, Summer 1997

Goellnicht, Donald C. "Passing as autobiography: James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man." African American Review, Spring 1996

Morgan, Thomas L. "The city as refuge: constructing urban blackness in Paul Laurence Dunbar's The Sport of the Gods and James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man." African American Review, Summer 2004

Nowlin, Michael. "James Weldon Johnson's Black Manhattan and the Kingdom of American Culture." African American Review, Fall 2005

Sheehy, John. The Mirror and the Veil: The Passing Novel and the Quest for American Racial Identity. African American Review, Fall 1999

Recommended reading list for The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, from Professor Donna Campbell

Strategies for teaching James Weldon Johnson, from Heath

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