Jakub Ženíšek
Disengaged or Disingenuous? Ascetic and Bourgeois Self-surveillance in African American Literature, exemplified on Charles Johnson’s “Alethia”
Číslo: 1/2013
Periodikum: Prague Journal of English Studies
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Anotace:
is paper traces the history of troubled negotiations between ideological and nonideological
writing in African American literature, with a special focus on the
work of the novelist and philosopher Charles Richard Johnson as possibly the most
recent synthesizing elaboration on the centuries old dichotomical tug of war between
unrestrained artistic self-expression and ideological self-policing in African American
literature. e argument is obviously most coherently addressed in Johnson’s nonfictional
writings, but different variations on the theme can also be discerned in his
other creative pursuits which he himself tags as “philosophical fiction”. One particular
facet of this communal and personal self-policing, whose permutations run a gamut
throughout black American fiction, is the schism between spontaneity and self-restraint.
is variation on the classical dichotomy between ecstasy and asceticism permeates
canonical 20th century African American writing, and is given a sporadic yet reasonably
thorough examination within Charles Johnson’s fiction, perhaps most explicitly in
his early short story “Alethia”.
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writing in African American literature, with a special focus on the
work of the novelist and philosopher Charles Richard Johnson as possibly the most
recent synthesizing elaboration on the centuries old dichotomical tug of war between
unrestrained artistic self-expression and ideological self-policing in African American
literature. e argument is obviously most coherently addressed in Johnson’s nonfictional
writings, but different variations on the theme can also be discerned in his
other creative pursuits which he himself tags as “philosophical fiction”. One particular
facet of this communal and personal self-policing, whose permutations run a gamut
throughout black American fiction, is the schism between spontaneity and self-restraint.
is variation on the classical dichotomy between ecstasy and asceticism permeates
canonical 20th century African American writing, and is given a sporadic yet reasonably
thorough examination within Charles Johnson’s fiction, perhaps most explicitly in
his early short story “Alethia”.