| Title | : | The New Negro Aesthetic: Selected Writings |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 014313521X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780143135210 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 480 |
| Publication | : | First published January 18, 2022 |
A Penguin Classic
For months, the philosopher Alain Locke wrestled with the idea of the Negro as America's most vexing problem. He asked how shall Negroes think of themselves as he considered the new crop of poets, novelists, and short story writers who, in 1924, wrote about their experiences as Black people in America. He did not want to frame Harlem and Black writing as yet another protest against racism, nor did he want to focus on the sociological perspective on the "Negro problem" and Harlem as a site of crime, poverty, and dysfunction. He wanted to find new language and a new way for Black people to think of themselves. The essays and articles collected in this volume, by Locke's Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer, are the result of that new attitude and the struggle to instill the New Negro aesthetics, as Stewart calls it here, into the mind of the twentieth century. To be a New Negro poet, novelist, actor, musician, dancer, or filmmaker was to commit oneself to an arc of self-discovery of what and who the Negro was—would be—without fear that one would disappoint the white or Black bystander. In committing to that path, Locke asserted, one would uncover a "being-in-the-world" that was rich and bountiful in its creative possibilities, if Black people could turn off the noise of racism and see themselves for who they really a world of creative people who have transformed, powerfully and perpetually, the culture of wherever history or social forces landed them.
The New Negro Aesthetic: Selected Writings Reviews
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Read this book and I guarantee you will want to read Jeffrey C. Stewart's The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke. Stewart's intro to this collection makes the book shine and will hopefully inspire a lot of new readers for Locke.
As much as I admire W.E.B. DuBois's accomplishments, I feel that Locke's views on aesthetics offer an important alternative. DuBois is too utilitarian. Locke brings aesthetics back to subjectivity and freedom. For Locke, art is a teleology of the self; For DuBois it is a teleology of the common cause. There is a time and a place for both, but, ultimately, I think Locke's presentation is the correct one, for even if we accept DuBois's position that all art be propaganda surely that is only in order to finally raise society to the level that Locke envisages...
Have a listen to Stewart's acceptance speech at the 2019 American book awards, starting at 1h, 46min, 28sec.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?465307-... -
dnf boooooring
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Read the essay 'The New Negro' for HUMS 4000
