James Weldon Johnson's Democracy Rag
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15030684 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel Henry (0000-0002-7231-7918, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 900-923 |
| Publication date | 2022-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theory & Event (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1092-311X • E-ISSN: 2572-6633 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tae.2022.0046 |
| OpenAlex | W4307127274 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
A growing literature in democratic theory interrogates concepts of fugitive democracy in conversation with the history of black fugitive thought and practice. However, most accounts tend to underemphasize the degree to which African American democratic thought has engaged fugitivity as an aesthetic politics amid impasse. I turn to the works of author, composer, and NAACP Executive Secretary James Weldon Johnson to discuss the latter, exemplified in his 1912 fictional autobiography. Johnson's representations of improvised Black performance gain a fugitive character by exploiting the limitations of writing to represent sound. In conversation with turn of the century debates over the racial politics of ragtime's syncopated rhythms, I read in Johnson a "ragged writing" structured by performances that, while remaining essential to the narrator's avowed democratic aims, nevertheless escape their fixity in writing
Aesthetics · Art · Biography · Character (mathematics · Conversation · Democracy · Literature · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Communication · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Race, History, and American Society · Theater, Performance, and Music History
From behind the veil
In the break
Abolition Of White Democracy
Lynching—America’s National Disgrace
Democratic Theory When Democracy Is Fugitive
A Spectacular Secret
James Weldon Johnson and the Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Musician
Reimagining Fugitive Democracy and Transformative Sanctuary with Black Frontline Communities in the Underground Railroad
Contentious Pluralism
The conscience of a fugitive
Syncope Fever
The Book of American Negro Poetry
The Book of American Negro Spirituals
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |