The Black masculinist agenda: Desire and gender politics of Protest Era literature

Lauren A Davis, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation, “The Black Masculinist Agenda: Desire and Gender Politics of Protest Era Literature,” focuses upon an ignored aspect of African American fiction, Protest Era literature. It documents the ways Protest Era authors understood the African American's striving for political equality with the assertion and acquisition of Black masculinity. I argue that the principal novelists of the Protest Era—Richard Wright, Chester Himes and James Baldwin—were attempting to establish a gendered literary discourse. Even as the novels and short stories of the Era were ensconced in discourses surrounding political and racial oppression, they were simultaneously establishing new perspectives on African American male identity. These narratives centered around issues of masculine definition, interracial desire, Black male/White male competition, and the role women played in defining gendered racial identities.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Curtis, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American studies|American literature|Black history|African Americans|Minority & ethnic groups|Sociology

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