Chapter 1 - Cultural Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Harlem Renaissance

Summary

Alain Locke located the New Negro movement within the context of minority nationalisms. The tendency to view nationalism as an ideology based on notions of purity and segregation has resulted in a mis-reading of the cultural politics of minority nationalisms, whether in Harlem or Dublin. A significant strain of black cultural nationalism has emphasized the internal diversity of African American culture. In close readings of works by Duke Ellington, Jean Toomer, and Zora Neale Hurston this chapter foregrounds the ways in which the artists of the Harlem Renaissance sought to explore and emphasize the inner diversity of black culture. This emphasis on the hybridity of a minority culture is a characteristic of minority nationalist movements. It is significant in that it poses a challenge to the homogenizing gaze of the dominant culture, and continues to challenge the terms in which nationalism is rejected in much contemporary progressive thought.