This book charts an interdisciplinary narrative of literary pragmatism and creative democracy across the writings of African American women, from the works of nineteenth-century philosophers to the novels and short stories of Harlem Renaissance authors. The book argues that this critically neglected narrative forms a genealogy of black feminist intersectionality and a major contribution to the development of American pragmatism. Bringing together the philosophical writings of Maria Stewart, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell and the fictional works of Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston, this text provides a literary pragmatist study of the archetypes, tropes, settings, and modes of resistance that populate the narrative of creative democracy. Above all, this book considers how these philosophers and authors construct democracy as a lived experience that gains meaning not through state institutions but through communities founded on relationships among black women and their shared understandings of culture, knowledge, experience, and rebellion.

Explores black feminist writings

Links philosophical and literary pragmatism within African American women's writing

Traces a literary lineage from the nineteenth century to the Harlem Renaissance

Autorentext

Gregory Phipps is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iceland, and author of Henry James and the Philosophy of Literary Pragmatism (2016). His articles have appeared in journals such as African American Review, English Studies in Canada, MELUS, and Studies in the Novel.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Nineteenth-Century Philosophical Pragmatism: The Black Maternal Archetype and the Communities of Creative Democracy.- Chapter 3: The Narrative of Creative Democracy in the Harlem Renaissance.- Chapter 4: The Search for Beautiful Experience in Jessie Fauset's Plum Bun.- Chapter 5: Creative Democracy in One Community: Literary Pragmatism in Jessie Fauset's The Chinaberry Tree.- Chapter 6: Breaking Down Creative Democracy: The Cycle of Experience and Truth in Nella Larsen's Quicksand .- Chapter 7: Securing the Archetype and the Community: Irene Redfield's Resistance to Creative Democracy in Nella Larsen's Passing .- Chapter 8: She Told Them About Her Trips to the Horizon: Creative Democracy in the Short Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston.- Chapter 9: Conclusion.