This book presents an intellectual history and theoretical exploration of black humanism since the civil rights era. Humanism is a human-centered approach to life that considers human beings to be responsible for the world and its course of history. Both the heavily theistic climate in the United States as well as the dominance of the Black Church are responsible for black humanism's existence in virtual oblivion. For those who believe the world to be one without supernatural interventions, human action matters greatly and is the only possible mode for change. Humanists are thus committed to promoting the public good through human effort rather than through faith. Black humanism originates from the lived experiences of African Americans in a white hegemonic society. Viewed from this perspective, black humanist cultural expressions are a continuous push to imagine and make room for alternative life options in a racist society.
Alexandra Hartmann counters religion's hegemonic grasp and uncovers black humanism as a small yet significant tradition in recent African American culture and cultural politics by studying its impact on African American literature and the ensuing anti-racist potentials. The book demonstrates that black humanism regards subjectivity as embodied and is thus a worldview that is characterized by a fragile hope regarding the possibility of progress racial and otherwise in the country.

Details how Black humanism stands apart from both Western humanist traditions and Black Church Shows how literary fiction serves as both a theoretical and cultural phenomenon in the Black humanist tradition Charts a history of Black humanism in the Black religious context whilst also offering an outline for the future

Autorentext

Alexandra Hartmann holds a PhD from Paderborn University where she is an assistant professor of American studies. She specializes in African American studies and especially the intellectual, cultural, and literary history of the twentieth and twenty-first century. 

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Embodiment, Agency, and Conceptions of Hope in Black Humanist Thought Embodied Subjectivity and Embodied Blackness.- 3. Self-Reliance Towards Deep Democracy: Theorizing Racial Embodiment in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man .- 4. The (Im)Possibility of Interracial Relationships in John A. Williams' Night Song .- 5. Subjectivities between Structure and Agency: Enlightenment Humanism, Gendered Trauma, and Community in Toni Morrison's Beloved .- 6. Precarity, Mourning, and Notes of Consolation in Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing .- 7. Epilogue: Writing Beyond Pessimism.