New Perspectives on James Weldon Johnson's "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man"

Edited by Noelle Morrissette

Title Details

Pages: 260

Trim size: 6.000in x 9.000in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 11/15/2019

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5683-9

List Price: $29.95

Hardcover

Pub Date: 07/15/2017

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5097-4

List Price: $62.95

eBook

Pub Date: 07/15/2017

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5096-7

List Price: $62.95

Subsidies and Partnerships

Published with the generous support of Sarah Mills Hodge Fund

New Perspectives on James Weldon Johnson's "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man"

Edited by Noelle Morrissette

New insights on an enduring classic of African American literature

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  • Description
  • Contributors

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) exemplified the ideal of the American public intellectual as a writer, educator, songwriter, diplomat, key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and first African American executive of the NAACP. Originally published anonymously in 1912, Johnson’s novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is considered one of the foundational works of twentieth-century African American literature, and its themes and forms have been taken up by other writers, from Ralph Ellison to Teju Cole.

Johnson’s novel provocatively engages with political and cultural strains still prevalent in American discourse today, and it remains in print over a century after its initial publication. New Perspectives contains fresh essays that analyze the book’s reverberations, the contexts within which it was created and received, the aesthetic and intellectual developments of its author, and its continuing influence on American literature and global culture.

Contributors: Bruce Barnhart, Lori Brooks, Ben Glaser, Jeff Karem, Daphne Lamothe, Noelle Morrissette, Michael Nowlin, Lawrence J. Oliver, Diana Paulin, Amritjit Singh, Robert B. Stepto

Bruce Barnhart

Lori Brooks

Ben Glaser

Jeff Karem

Daphne Lamothe

Michael Nowlin

Lawrence Oliver

Diana Paulin

Amritjit Singh

Robert Stepto

About the Author/Editor

NOELLE MORRISSETTE is an associate professor of English and program director of African American and African Diaspora Studies at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is author of James Weldon Johnson’s Modern Soundscapes and the editor of New Perspectives on James Weldon Johnson’s “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” (Georgia). She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.