Psychoanalysis and Black Novels: Desire and the Protocols of Race

Race and American Culture

by Claudia Tate

Although psychoanalytic theory is one of the most important and influential tools in contemporary literary criticism, to date it has had very little impact on the study of African-American literature and culture. Now, Claudia Tate argues that psycholanalytic paradigms can produce rich readings
of African-American desire, alienation, and subjectivity. Tate summarizes the work of such figures as Freud and Lacan, with references to their contemporary literary proponents, and examines a series of texts by Emma Kelly, W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and Nella Larsen.
This provocative new book will serve as an introduction to psychoanalytic theory and its application for African-American literature and culture. Tate strikes unchartered territory, and her work will be of great interest to scholars and students in African-American studies.

Genres: Psychoanalysis, African American

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 12, 1998

About the author

Claudia Tate (December 14, 1947 – July 29, 2002) was a noted literary critic and professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University. She is credited with moving African-American literary criticism into the realm of the psychological.

(from Wikipedia)