African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930

Book excerpt: "African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 presents original essays that map ideological, historical, and cultural shifts in the 1920s. Complicating the familiar reading of the 1920s as a decade that began with a spectacular boom and ended with disillusionment and bust, the collection explores the range and diversity of Black cultural production. Emphasizing a generative contrast between the ephemeral qualities of periodicals, clothes, and décor and the relative fixity of canonical texts, this volume captures in its dynamics a cultural movement that was fluid and expansive. Chapters by leading scholars are grouped into four sections: "Habitus, Sound, Fashion"; "Spaces: Chronicles of Harlem and Beyond"; "Uplift Renewed: Religion, Protest, and Education," and "Serial Reading: Magazines and Periodical Culture.""--