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Palgrave Macmillan

The Black Humanist Tradition in Anti-Racist Literature

A Fragile Hope

  • Book
  • © 2023

Overview

Authors:
  1. Alexandra Hartmann

    1. Paderborn, Germany

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  • Details how Black humanism stands apart from both Western humanist traditions and Black Church
  • Shows how literary fiction serves as both a theoretical and cultural phenomenon in the Black humanist tradition
  • Charts a history of Black humanism in the Black religious context whilst also offering an outline for the future

Part of the book series: Studies in Humanism and Atheism (SHA)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
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  2. Introduction

    • Alexandra Hartmann
    Pages 1-18

  3. Embodiment, Agency, and Conceptions of Hope in Black Humanist Thought

    • Alexandra Hartmann
    Pages 19-54

  4. Self-Reliance Towards Deep Democracy: Theorizing Racial Embodiment in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

    • Alexandra Hartmann
    Pages 55-90

  5. The (Im)Possibility of Interracial Relationships in John A. Williams’ Night Song

    • Alexandra Hartmann
    Pages 91-122

  6. Subjectivities Between Structure and Agency: Enlightenment Humanism, Gendered Trauma, and Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

    • Alexandra Hartmann
    Pages 123-157

  7. Precarity, Mourning, and Notes of Consolation in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing

    • Alexandra Hartmann
    Pages 159-194

  8. Epilogue: Writing Beyond Pessimism

    • Alexandra Hartmann
    Pages 195-205

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 207-211
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Keywords

About this book

This book presents an intellectual history and theoretical exploration of black humanism since the civil rights era. Humanism is a human-centered approach to life that considers human beings to be responsible for the world and its course of history. Both the heavily theistic climate in the United States as well as the dominance of the Black Church are responsible for black humanism’s existence in virtual oblivion. For those who believe the world to be one without supernatural interventions, human action matters greatly and is the only possible mode for change. Humanists are thus committed to promoting the public good through human effort rather than through faith. Black humanism originates from the lived experiences of African Americans in a white hegemonic society. Viewed from this perspective, black humanist cultural expressions are a continuous push to imagine and make room for alternative life options in a racist society. 


Alexandra Hartmann counters religion’s hegemonic grasp and uncovers black humanism as a small yet significant tradition in recent African American culture and cultural politics by studying its impact on African American literature and the ensuing anti-racist potentials. The book demonstrates that black humanism regards subjectivity as embodied and is thus a worldview that is characterized by a fragile hope regarding the possibility of progress – racial and otherwise – in the country.

Reviews

“This book is a nuanced, signifi cant, and original contribution to our understanding of humanism in African American literature and should be required reading for students and scholars of humanism and atheism in the United States.” (Christopher Cameron, Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Author of Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism)

“This brilliant book is the best philosophic and literary treatment we have of the great Black humanist tradition! Alexandra Hartmann’s sophisticated and subtle defense of this tradition in the face of posthumanist critiques is persuasive and powerful!” (Cornel West is currently Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy & Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Paderborn, Germany

    Alexandra Hartmann

About the author

Alexandra Hartmann holds a PhD from Paderborn University where she is an assistant professor of American studies. She specializes in African American studies and especially the intellectual, cultural, and literary history of the twentieth and twenty-first century. 



Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Black Humanist Tradition in Anti-Racist Literature

  • Book Subtitle: A Fragile Hope

  • Authors: Alexandra Hartmann

  • Series Title: Studies in Humanism and Atheism

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20947-5

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-20946-8Published: 14 May 2023

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-20949-9Due: 14 June 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-20947-5Published: 13 May 2023

  • Series ISSN: 2634-6656

  • Series E-ISSN: 2634-6664

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 211

  • Topics: Black Theology, African American Culture, Literary Theory

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