Final Paper Topic: Black Internationalism through Claude McKay's Literature

Rough Introduction: The problem of the “color line,” as W.E.B Du Bois explains, was never only an issue in US debates and civil rights struggles that are commonly taken to be its arena, but in the much broader sphere of modern civilization as a whole. Western imperialism and colonialism was something that was universal to the transnational Black experience in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Black intellectuals within the Diaspora during the early 20^th century such as Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and Leopold Senghor led efforts to thrust “Negro social thought into an international arena” to unite subaltern voices against Western colonialism (Edwards 2). However, writer Claude Mckay’s literary contributions to the Black Internationalist movement are seldom discussed. In this paper, I will be exploring the Black Internationalist movement by highlighting Claude McKay, his novel Banjo and the important role McKay played in connecting Harlem Renaissance writers in the United States with Negritude writers in Imperial France. 

Section 1: Context

Paragraph 1: Racial and literary milieu of McKay’s career

Paragraph 2: McKay’s upbringing

Section 2: Banjo Analysis

Paragraph 1: Importance of setting and audience

Paragraph 2: Interactions between Ray, Banjo and the Senegalese

Paragraph 3: Black Nationalist discourses in the text

Paragraph 4: Influence of Banjo internationally

Section 3: McKay’s other works in conversation with Harlem Renaissance and Negritude writers

Paragraph 1: Influence of McKay’s Banana Bottom in rethinking modernism and primitivism when it comes to Black cultural identity

Paragraph 2: McKay in conversation with Zora Neale Hurston

Paragraph 3: McKay in conversation with Leopold Senghor

Section 4: McKay as a centerpiece of transnational exchange for ideas of Black identity

Conclusion

Primary Sources:

Hurston, Zora Neale., and Cheryl A. Wall. Sweat. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997. Print.

McKay, Claude. A Long Way from Home. New York: Arno, 1969. Print.

McKay, Claude. Banjo. S.l.: André Dimanche Ed., 1999. Print.

McKay, Claude. Banana Bottom. Chatham, NJ: Chatham eller, 1970. Print.

Secondary Sources:

Edwards, Brent Hayes. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black

Internationalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003. Print.

Ford, Richard. Racial Culture: A Critique. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Print. 

Platt, Len. Modernism and Race. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.

Wilder, Gary. The French Imperial Nation-state: Negritude & Colonial Humanism between the

Two World Wars. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2005. Print.