Black Utopia
The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4156457 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Francis Shor (Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 439-439 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jaaa332 |
| OpenAlex | W3088672745 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Alex Zamalin's well-written review of the political meanings of African American utopian texts from the early nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century reflects the recent productive engagement of scholars of African American history with black utopianism. To some extent, Zamalin's historical review of African American utopian texts complements Robin D. G. Kelley's Freedom Dreams (2002). Where Kelley probed the cultural impact of the black radical imagination, Zamalin focuses on particular cultural texts to tease out their utopian and antiutopian impulses as a political counternarrative. While Black Utopia yields notable insights into those cultural texts and political counternarratives, there are both theoretical gaps and missed connections that detract from an otherwise solid study. Zamalin notes that utopia is a “fruitful ... site from which to test the value of our extant political formations” (p. 6). He undertakes critical readings of the works of people known either as black political activists, such as Martin Delany, black scholars and activists, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, or black literary figures, such as Sutton Griggs, Pauline Hopkins, George Schuyler, Richard Wright, Samuel Delany, and Octavia Butler. Because the last two writers are particularly recognized for utopian/dystopian texts, Zamalin's interpretive interventions are little more than a synthesis of prior scholarship. His exploration of the musician-poet Sun Ra is, however, a welcome addition to an analysis of black utopianism, although he overlooks the connection between Ra's cosmic explorations and Butler's utopian horizon of space colonization. There are other missed connections. For example, the utopian horizon of “Ethiopianism,” embedded in Hopkins's novel, Of One Blood (serialized in Colored American Magazine, 1902–1903), could have been linked to Du Bois's 1913 pageant, The Star of Ethiopia
Aesthetics · African-American history · Art · Art history · Dystopia · Literature · Nationalism · Political radicalism · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Utopia · Wright · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
| Citations per year | 1.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2024 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |