Dissolving the Academic Color Line: A Reading of Langston Hughes’s and Gwendolyn Bennett’s Poetry from the New Negro Renaissance Through a Pragmatic Lens Using William James’s Philosophy Open Access

Abstract

William James was a prolific figure in New York just a few years prior to the beginning of the New Negro Renaissance, most commonly known as the Harlem Renaissance, that has been typically said to span from the 1920s to the 1930s. Using his pragmatism as literary theory, I analyze two poems each by Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Bennett published during the Renaissance to reveal the attention, blindness, radical empiricism, focus on conjunctive and lived experience, pluralism of thought and meaning, truth of racism, the process of personal consciousness, and habit of style. This project bridges a gap between black and white academic writing while also providing a reading of four poems published by major New Negro icons in a pragmatic lens.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The New Negro Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Bennett and William James’s Pragmatism………..………………..………………………………………………...1

 

I: Attention and Blindness …………………………………………………………………...13

 

II: Radical Empiricism, Experience, Pluralism and Truth …………………………………..43

 

III: Stream of Thought and Habit ……………………………………………………………70

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………...94

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………97

 

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	English
Degree	M.A.
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	African American Studies Philosophy Literature, American
Keyword	Harlem Renaissance Gwendolyn Bennett New Negro Renaissance Pragmatism William James African American literature poetry philosophy Langston Hughes
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Michelle Wright, Emory University John Stuhr, Emory University

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