{"product_id":"black-queer-flesh-alvin-j-henry-9781517910068","title":"Black Queer Flesh: Rejecting Subjectivity in the African American Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA groundbreaking examination of how twentieth-century African American writers use queer characters to challenge and ultimately reject subjectivity \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Queer Flesh\u003c\/i\u003e reinterprets key African American novels from the Harlem Renaissance to Black Modernism to contemporary literature, showing how authors have imagined a new model of Black queer selfhood. African American authors blame liberal humanism's model of subjectivity for double consciousness and find that liberal humanism's celebration of individual autonomy and agency is a way of disciplining Black queer lives. These authors thus reject subjectivity in search of a new mode of the self that Alvin J. Henry names \"Black queer flesh\"--a model of selfhood that is collective, plural, fluctuating, and deeply connected to the Black queer past. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHenry begins with early twentieth-century authors such as Jessie Redmon Fauset and James Weldon Johnson. These authors adapted the \u003ci\u003eBildungsroman\u003c\/i\u003e, the novel of self-formation, to show African Americans gaining freedom and agency by becoming a liberal, autonomous subjects. These authors, however, discovered that the promise of liberal autonomy held out by the \u003ci\u003eBildungsroman\u003c\/i\u003e was yet another tool of antiblack racism. As a result, they tentatively experimented with repurposing the \u003ci\u003eBildungsroman\u003c\/i\u003e to throw off subjectivity and its attendant double consciousness. In contrast, Nella Larsen, Henry shows, was the first author to fully reject subjectivity. In \u003ci\u003eQuicksand and Passing\u003c\/i\u003e, Larsen invented a new genre showing her queer characters--characters whose queerness already positioned them on the margins of subjectivity--escaping subjectivity altogether. Using Ralph Ellison's archival drafts, Henry then powerfully rereads \u003ci\u003eInvisible Man\u003c\/i\u003e, revealing that the protagonist as a queer, disabled character taught by the novel's many other queer, disabled characters to likewise seek a selfhood beyond subjectivity. Although Larsen and Ellison sketch glimpses of this selfhood beyond subjectivity, only Saidiya Hartman's \u003ci\u003eWayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments\u003c\/i\u003e shows a protagonist fully inhabiting Black queer flesh--a new mode of selfhood that is collective, plural, always evolving, and no longer alienated from the black past.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Queer Flesh\u003c\/i\u003e is an original and necessary contribution to Black literary studies, offering new ways to understand and appreciate the canonical texts and far more. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Alvin J. Henry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1517910064\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781517910068\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Minnesota Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/05\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 264\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.79lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.80d","brand":"Alvin J. Henry","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43982741111039,"sku":"9781517910068","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_b748ca5c-d04e-459a-a542-4221cf252290.jpg?v=1683262791","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/black-queer-flesh-alvin-j-henry-9781517910068","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}