New Perspectives on James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man

Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
CONTENTS......Page 8
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 10
INTRODUCTION: Biography of an Author, Biography of a Text: James Weldon Johnson’s Ultimate American Work......Page 14
PART ONE: CULTURES OF READING, CULTURES OF WRITING: CANONS AND AUTHENTICITY......Page 34
“Stepping across the Confines of Language and Race”: Brander Matthews, James Weldon Johnson, and Racial Cosmopolitanism......Page 36
How The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Became an Unlikely Literary Classic......Page 54
Authenticity and Transparency in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man......Page 77
PART TWO: RELATIONAL TROPES: TRANSNATIONALISM, FUTURITY, AND THE EX-COLORED MAN......Page 98
The Futurity of Miscegenation: James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood......Page 100
Blackness Written, Erased, Rewritten: James Weldon Johnson, Teju Cole, and the Palimpsest of Modernity......Page 125
Dead Ambitions and Repeated Interruptions: Economies of Race and Temporality in The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man......Page 141
PART THREE: POETICS: SOUND, AFFECT, AND THE ARCHIVE......Page 158
The Autobiography as Ars Poetica: Satire and Rhythmic Exegesis in “Saint Peter Relates an Incident”......Page 160
The Composer versus the “Perfessor”: Writing Race and (Rag)Time......Page 182
James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Archived and Live......Page 202
PART FOUR: LEGACIES......Page 224
W. E. B. Du Bois, Barack Obama, and the Search for Race: School House Blues......Page 226
AFTERWORD: The Ex-Colored Man for a New Century......Page 243
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING......Page 252
CONTRIBUTORS......Page 256
D......Page 258
M......Page 259
S......Page 260
Y......Page 261