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Disengaged or Disingenuous? Ascetic and Bourgeois Self-surveillance in African American Literature, exemplified on Charles Johnson’s “Alethia”

Disengaged or Disingenuous? Ascetic and Bourgeois Self-surveillance in African American... Prague Journal of English Studies Volume 2, No. 1, 2013 ISSN: 1804-8722 Jakub Zenísek is paper traces the history of troubled negotiations between ideological and nonideological writing in African American literature, with a special focus on the work of the novelist and philosopher Charles Richard Johnson as possibly the most recent synthesizing elaboration on the centuries old dichotomical tug of war between unrestrained artistic self-expression and ideological self-policing in African American literature. e argument is obviously most coherently addressed in Johnson's nonfictional writings, but different variations on the theme can also be discerned in his other creative pursuits which he himself tags as "philosophical fiction". One particular facet of this communal and personal self-policing, whose permutations run a gamut throughout black American fiction, is the schism between spontaneity and self-restraint. is variation on the classical dichotomy between ecstasy and asceticism permeates canonical 20th century African American writing, and is given a sporadic yet reasonably thorough examination within Charles Johnson's fiction, perhaps most explicitly in his early short story "Alethia". e work of the African American writer and scholar Charles Richard Johnson spans many diverse topics, but the cohesive common denominator of all his artistic endeavours is their philosophical http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Prague Journal of English Studies de Gruyter

Disengaged or Disingenuous? Ascetic and Bourgeois Self-surveillance in African American Literature, exemplified on Charles Johnson’s “Alethia”

Ženíšek, Jakub
Prague Journal of English Studies , Volume 2 (1) – Dec 1, 2013
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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the
ISSN
2336-2685
eISSN
2336-2685
DOI
10.2478/pjes-2014-0007
Publisher site
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Abstract

Prague Journal of English Studies Volume 2, No. 1, 2013 ISSN: 1804-8722 Jakub Zenísek is paper traces the history of troubled negotiations between ideological and nonideological writing in African American literature, with a special focus on the work of the novelist and philosopher Charles Richard Johnson as possibly the most recent synthesizing elaboration on the centuries old dichotomical tug of war between unrestrained artistic self-expression and ideological self-policing in African American literature. e argument is obviously most coherently addressed in Johnson's nonfictional writings, but different variations on the theme can also be discerned in his other creative pursuits which he himself tags as "philosophical fiction". One particular facet of this communal and personal self-policing, whose permutations run a gamut throughout black American fiction, is the schism between spontaneity and self-restraint. is variation on the classical dichotomy between ecstasy and asceticism permeates canonical 20th century African American writing, and is given a sporadic yet reasonably thorough examination within Charles Johnson's fiction, perhaps most explicitly in his early short story "Alethia". e work of the African American writer and scholar Charles Richard Johnson spans many diverse topics, but the cohesive common denominator of all his artistic endeavours is their philosophical

Journal

Prague Journal of English Studies – de Gruyter

Published: Dec 1, 2013

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    Sweet
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