Thinking Through Crisis: Depression-Era Black Literature, Theory, and Politics

Awards:   Short-listed for Modernist Studies Association First Book Prize 2021 Winner of William Sanders Scarborough Prize 2020
Author:   James Edward Ford ,  James Edward Ford III
Publisher:   Fordham University Press
ISBN:  

9780823286911


Pages:   336
Publication Date:   05 November 2019
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Thinking Through Crisis: Depression-Era Black Literature, Theory, and Politics


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Awards

  • Short-listed for Modernist Studies Association First Book Prize 2021
  • Winner of William Sanders Scarborough Prize 2020

Overview

Winner, 2020 William Sanders Scarborough Prize, Modern Language Association Honorable Mention, MSA First Book Prize In Thinking Through Crisis, James Edward Ford III examines the works of Richard Wright, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes during the 1930s in order to articulate a materialist theory of trauma. Ford highlights the dark proletariat's emergence from the multitude apposite to white supremacist agendas. In these works, Ford argues, proletarian, modernist, and surrealist aesthetics transform fugitive slaves, sharecroppers, leased convicts, levee workers, and activist intellectuals into protagonists of anti-racist and anti-capitalist movements in the United States. Thinking Through Crisis intervenes in debates on the 1930s, radical subjectivity, and states of emergency. It will be of interest to scholars of American literature, African American literature, proletarian literature, black studies, trauma theory, and political theory.

Full Product Details

Author:   James Edward Ford ,  James Edward Ford III
Publisher:   Fordham University Press
Imprint:   Fordham University Press
ISBN:  

9780823286911


ISBN 10:   0823286916
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   05 November 2019
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments | ix Introduction: From Being to Unrest, from Objectivity to Motion | 1 Notebook 1 Down by the Riverside: Richard Wright, the 1927 Flood, and the Citizen-Refugee | 35 Notebook 2 “Crusade for Justice”: Ida B. Wells and the Power of the Multitude | 74 Notebook 3 W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction: Theorizing Divine Violence | 123 Notebook 4 Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain: An Anthropology of Power | 193 Notebook 5 The New Day: Notes on Education and the Dark Proletariat | 244 Conclusion: From Being to Unrest, from Objectivity to Motion—A Race for Theory | 291 Notes | 299 Index | 333

Reviews

James Edward Ford's erudition is critical and compositional. Thinking Through Crisis teaches us to reread texts that are, now, in his placement of them alongside one another, emanations of a larger, refolded, unfolding topography of twentieth century radical thought. This is a welcome and unique accomplishment. Ford is a sharp and adventurous thinker and Thinking Through Crisis expresses his gifts with profound, difficult beauty. -- Fred Moten, New York University This is an excellent study of the exigencies of black politics during the Depression era. Highly recommended. * Choice *


James Edward Ford's erudition is critical and compositional. Thinking Through Crisis teaches us to reread texts that are, now, in his placement of them alongside one another, emanations of a larger, refolded, unfolding topography of twentieth century radical thought. This is a welcome and unique accomplishment. Ford is a sharp and adventurous thinker and Thinking Through Crisis expresses his gifts with profound, difficult beauty. -- Fred Moten, New York University


Author Information

James Edward Ford III is Associate Professor of English at Occidental College. His writings on the aesthetics of black radicalism, black popular culture, and political theory have appeared in the journals Novel, Biography, Cultural Critique, College Literature, New Centennial Review, ASAP Journal, and multiple edited collections. He is currently working on “Phillis, the Black Swan: Disheveling the Origins” and “Hip-Hop’s Late Style: Disheveling the Origins,” two projects that rethink the origins and ends of black American cultural production.

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