Unnatural Selections: Eugenics in American Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance
Challenging conventional constructions of the Harlem Renaissance and American modernism, Daylanne English links writers from both movements to debates about eugenics in the Progressive Era. She argues that, in the 1920s, the form and content of writings by figures as disparate as W. E. B. Du Bois, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, and Nella Larsen were shaped by anxieties regarding immigration, migration, and intraracial breeding.
English's interdisciplinary approach brings together the work of those canonical writers with relatively neglected literary, social scientific, and visual texts. She examines antilynching plays by Angelina Weld Grimke as well as the provocative writings of white female eugenics field workers. English also analyzes the Crisis magazine as a family album filtering uplift through eugenics by means of photographic documentation of an ever-improving black race.
English suggests that current scholarship often misreads early-twentieth-century visual, literary, and political culture by applying contemporary social and moral standards to the past. Du Bois, she argues, was actually more of a eugenicist than Eliot. Through such reconfiguration of the modern period, English creates an allegory for the American present: because eugenics was, in its time, widely accepted as a reasonable, progressive ideology, we need to consider the long-term implications of contemporary genetic engineering, fertility enhancement and control, and legislation promoting or discouraging family growth.
Author: Daylanne K. English
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 04/26/2004
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 9.32h x 6.06w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780807855317
Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2004 pg. 100
About the Author
English, Daylanne K.: - Daylanne K. English is associate professor of African American literature at Macalester College.
English's interdisciplinary approach brings together the work of those canonical writers with relatively neglected literary, social scientific, and visual texts. She examines antilynching plays by Angelina Weld Grimke as well as the provocative writings of white female eugenics field workers. English also analyzes the Crisis magazine as a family album filtering uplift through eugenics by means of photographic documentation of an ever-improving black race.
English suggests that current scholarship often misreads early-twentieth-century visual, literary, and political culture by applying contemporary social and moral standards to the past. Du Bois, she argues, was actually more of a eugenicist than Eliot. Through such reconfiguration of the modern period, English creates an allegory for the American present: because eugenics was, in its time, widely accepted as a reasonable, progressive ideology, we need to consider the long-term implications of contemporary genetic engineering, fertility enhancement and control, and legislation promoting or discouraging family growth.
Author: Daylanne K. English
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 04/26/2004
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 9.32h x 6.06w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780807855317
Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2004 pg. 100
About the Author
English, Daylanne K.: - Daylanne K. English is associate professor of African American literature at Macalester College.
We offer worldwide shipping.
All baymarbookgroup.ca orders over $100
(before taxes) are eligible for FREE standard shipping within Canada and
the United States.
Estimated Delivery Times Outside the USA
Area / Country | Standard International Shipping (Not Trackable) |
International Courier Trackable |
Asia | 10-14 days | 4-6 days |
Australia | 18-20 days | 4-6 days |
Canada | 10-14 days | 4-6 days |
Caribbean | 14-18 days | 4-6 days |
Europe | 10-14 days | 4-6 days |
India | 16-20 days | 4-6 days |
Latin America | 10-14 days | 4-6 days |
Middle East | 16-20 days | 4-6 days |