Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance

by Houston A. Baker Jr.

"Mr. Baker perceives the harlem Renaissance as a crucial moment in a movement, predating the 1920's, when Afro-Americans embraced the task of self-determination and in so doing gave forth a distinctive form of expression that still echoes in a broad spectrum of 20th-century Afro-American arts. . . . Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance may well become Afro-America's 'studying manual.'"—Tonya Bolden, New York Times Book Review

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, African American, Academic, Grad School

132 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Houston A. Baker is Distinguished University Professor and a professor of English at Vanderbilt University. He has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been a resident fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the National Humanities Center. He has served as president of the Modern Language Association and as editor of the journal American Literature.

Reviews

[Josh Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Renaissancism not only summons a mass image but converts it into a salvific sound that becomes a spirit house and space of black habitation. For the very sufferers imaged are a people of will and strength who convert marronage into song, story, arts of liberation, and guerrilla war. There is quite frequently among them a communicating by horns. And their image translates at last into the mask of a resounding and venerable ancestry of fields. The task of the spokesperson who would engage the sound of folk conversion is to situate himself or herself in productive relationship to a field marked by awesome strategies of deformation and mastery. It is this discursive field that links us bone of the bone, flesh of the flesh, and note by resounding blue note to contours of those transforming African masks that constitute our beginnings.”

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major Field Prep: 26/133 (20% done!)
Baker confronts the traditional problematic of studies of the Harlem Renaissance that presume the movement was a failure. Instead of following this line of logic, Baker resignifies "modernism" and the "modern" for the Afro-American discursive tradition. He locates the start of the shift to Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address in 1895, and calls his 1902 work Up From Slavery a speaking manual. Washington and Chesnutt are the main examples of one of Baker's two major strategies: mastery of form. Form, in this sense, is related the the trope and practice of masking. BTW and Chesnutt use the myth and signs of minstrelsy to subvert and subtly undermine the mythos of the black figure in American letters. In contrast, Du Bois and Dunbar use the strategy of deformation of mastery. Instead of locating their masking strategies in minstrelsy tropes, they call upon African primitivism and regionalism. These figures and these strategies set up the "modern" in the early 20thC and lead the expression of the renaissancism in the 1920s. Baker looks extensively at Locke's The New Negro as the canonical text of the period and dubs it a resistant marronism: "It is, I believe, a broadening and enlargement of the field of Afro-American discursive possibilities. The work has, in effect, the character of a panorama’s ‘unlimited’ view, summoning concerns not of a problematical ‘folk’ but rather those of a newly emergent ‘race’ or ‘nation’—a national culture” (Baker 73). If we reframe the problematic of the Harlem Renaissance as one of renaissancism, not one of failure, it is clear that it was a success because its resonances continue through the century and the project of declaring a self-determined voice and sound, a national culture, persists.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It probably deserves a 2, but an extra star for at least being clear in its argument and prose. Baker it's convinced that Booker T. Washington is a secret radical and the only reason he advocated for basically renslaving black people was because he knew it was the only way to get his message out and once black people learned how to work (which, what is he talking about? All black people do is work!) then they would have the skills to become the black bourgeoisie. No part of the argument actually holds up, but at least it's clear. When he starts citing zoologists to support his claims is when things really get interesting! It's a bad argument, but quick and intelligible.

[John Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. Lots to think about. The author makes an argument about mastery of form and deforming mastery, which I wish was a little clearer or more supported with specifics.

[ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

surpreendentemente simplesmente errado mas de uma convicção impressionante

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting reading of texts often thought as "failures" in the struggle for racial equality. Baker gets on a high horse sometimes, but it's a clever high horse, and his ideas are intriguing if not very specific.

[Purple Iris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably more 2.5, as I remember.