Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism

Alex Zamalin

Published by Columbia University Press 2019

Black Utopia

The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism

Alex Zamalin

https://doi.org/10.7312/zama18740

Overview
Contents

About this book

Alex Zamalin offers a groundbreaking examination of African American visions of utopia and their counterutopian counterparts. Considering figures linked to racial separatism, postracialism, anticolonialism, Pan-Africanism, and Afrofuturism, he argues that the black utopian tradition continues to challenge American political thought and culture.

Author / Editor information

Zamalin Alex :

Alex Zamalin (PhD, Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center) is Director of African American Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Detroit. He is the author of African American Political Thought and American Culture: The Nation’s Struggle for Racial Justice (Palgrave, 2015) and Struggle on Their Minds: The Political Thought of African American Resistance (Columbia, 2017) and the coeditor (with Jonathan Keller) of American Political Thought: An Alternative Reader (Routledge, 2017).Alex Zamalin is assistant professor of political science and director of the African American Studies Program at University of Detroit, Mercy. He is the author of African American Political Thought and American Culture: The Nation’s Struggle for Racial Justice (2015); Struggle on Their Minds: The Political Thought of African American Resistance (Columbia, 2017); and Antiracism: An Introduction (2019).

Reviews

Joseph Winters, author of Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress:
Alex Zamalin balances generosity and critique in a careful yet energetic and buoyant manner.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Utopia and Black American Thought Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Martin Delany’s Experiment in Escape Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. Turn- of- the- Century Black Literary Utopianism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
3. W. E. B. Du Bois’s World of Utopian Intimacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
4. George S. Schuyler, Irony, and Utopia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
5. Richard Wright’s Black Power and Anticolonial Antiutopianism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
6. Sun Ra and Cosmic Blackness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
7. Samuel Delany and the Ambiguity of Utopia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
8. Octavia Butler and the Politics of Utopian Transcendence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
Conclusion: Black Utopia and the Contemporary Political Imagination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Illustrations
- Other: 6 b&w photographs

eBook

Published: September 23, 2019
ISBN: 9780231547253