Thinking through Crisis: 1930s African American Literature and Politics

In this dissertation I challenge the conventional literary history that 1930s black intellectuals were uncritical followers of mainstream American Communism. I assert that the literature of Richard Wright, Ida B Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois are representative of black radicalism's unique engagement with Depression-era politics. Through close readings of their literature, alongside other cultural productions, I conceptualize 'crisis' as a tool for analyzing the contradictory emergences of alternative agencies in moments of social breakdown. In doing so, I challenge theoretical assumptions, epitomized in trauma theory, that overwhelming experiences are beyond comprehension. I also challenge historical teleologies, as in Marxist narratives of revolution, that predetermine when a crisis will occur, who will act, and the outcome of that action. What results is a non-teleological theorization of agency and social change.