Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2021, History

Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, and Nina Simone were musicians in the early-mid twentieth century who were innovators for using art as activism. They used their art and platforms to raise awareness and comment on the state of the nation in regards to civil rights. Billie Holiday paved the way with her iconic song "Strange Fruit," calling out racial injustice in the form of lynchings. Lena Horne was a performer who made room for Black actors in Hollywood for roles outside of stereotypes, like servants or "mammies." Nina Simone was a classical pianist who used her strong voice and honest lyrics to narrate the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Their lives demonstrate intersectionality and how Black women used their strength, determination, and art to be part of a movement.

Committee: Chester Pach Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American History; Black History; Gender; History; Modern History; Music

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Theatre

The Harlem Renaissance and New Negro Movement is a well-documented period in which artistic output by the black community in Harlem, New York, and beyond, surged. On the heels of Reconstruction, a generation of black artists and intellectuals—often the first in their families born after the thirteenth amendment—spearheaded the movement. Using art as a means by which to comprehend and to reclaim aspects of their identity which had been stolen during the Middle Passage, these artists were also living in a time marked by the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and segregation. It stands to reason, then, that the work that has survived from this period is often rife with political and personal motivations. Male figureheads of the movement are often remembered for their divisive debate as to whether or not black art should be politically charged. The public debates between men like W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke often overshadow the actual artistic outputs, many of which are relegated to relative obscurity. Black female artists in particular are overshadowed by their male peers despite their significant interventions. Two pioneers of this period, Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) and Eulalie Spence (1894-1981), will be the subject of my thesis. Both artists, whose work is in close conversation, were innovators in their field. In this thesis I will argue that black women like Johnson and Spence were true innovators during the Harlem Renaissance/New Negro Movement despite the fact that men like Locke and Du Bois are often seen as its figureheads. Johnson and Spence are salient examples for two key reasons. First, their work represents a false dichotomy—art vs. propaganda—which I will endeavor to refute. Second, their work, despite its differences, engages with many of the same themes related to feminism and intersectionality. While there has been an influx of research into the lives and work of such women as Johnson and Spence in recent years, my aim is to furthe (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jennifer Schlueter (Advisor); Beth Kattelman (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Gender Studies; History; Theater; Theater History; Womens Studies

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The Familiar Stranged is a collection of four horror stories written in the vein of George Saunders, Kelly Link, Shirley Jackson, Tananarive Due, and Brandon Massey. Focusing on the unconventional/unusual point of view and also voice, these stories follow unsuspecting characters—an artificial intelligence, dead writers who seek revenge, mannequins who come to life at night, and an imaginary “friend” who all reside in an upside down, familiar made strange, slightly off kilter world, bound and imprisoned by various circumstances. These stories are intended to feel episodic—paying homage to The Twilight Zone in tone and theme. There is a critical introduction followed by the text.

Committee: Imad Rahman MFA (Committee Chair); Mike Geither MFA (Committee Member); Adam Sonstegard Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Literature; Literature

PHD, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

With an increased interest in the literature of the African Diaspora, scholars have concurrently begun to call upon theories of transnationalism. This joint emphasis has created a critical discussion of the significance of global studies in examinations of modern black identity. One aspect that remains unexamined is the impetus for transnational transition that arises at the crossroads of race and self-identity. This dissertation addresses this gap through the concept of liminality, which refers to an in-between state characterized by marginalization and figurative homelessness. The presence of a perpetual liminality frequently leads to geographical relocation, often transnational in nature, as liminal subjects attempt to discover a place where their self-identity will not result in compromise or tragedy. The Harlem Renaissance presents a microcosm wherein writers frequently traveled internationally and incorporated these dynamics and themes in their literature. The theory of transnational liminality thereby provides a critical lens for underscoring the significance and necessity of a global understanding of the Harlem Renaissance—specifically the fictional and autobiographical writings of Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Langston Hughes. These texts demonstrate the intellectuals' irrevocable challenge of racist milieus of the early twentieth century. Therefore, Harlem Renaissance writers and their protagonists looked to a transnational world in their quest for self-identity and home. In a similar vein, liminality is central to the study of Black Transnationalism in the twenty-first century, as contemporary writings of the African Diaspora continue to use international travel as an essential tool highlighting disillusionment in modernity's ability to eradicate racism and the ubiquitous quest for home. The lens of transnational liminality offers a cultural theory capable of illuminating and addressing these recurring concerns.

Committee: Babacar M'Baye (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American Literature; Black Studies; Ethnic Studies; Literature

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2013, American Culture Studies

In three chapters I propose to show that the American art collector Dr. Albert Coombs Barnes simultaneously amassed a major collection of modern European and ancient African art during the first half of the twentieth-century and worked consistently as an advocate for racial, social and educational reform in the United States. In conjunction with this collection and advocacy Barnes also originated a characteristic method for the analysis and understanding of painting that was dedicated to the service of these egalitarian social ideals. Now that the Barnes Foundation, the institution dedicated to preserving this collection and the social mission behind it has been relocated from Merion, Pennsylvania to Philadelphia and opened to the public, I argue that it is essential the Foundation continue to document and teach Barnes' original theories concerning art and social action to visitors from around the world.

Committee: Andrew Hershberger Dr. (Advisor); Jolie Sheffer Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; American Studies; Art History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, English

This dissertation examines the ways in which companionate marriage ideology of the 1920s and 30s affected representations of heterosexual relations in novels written by African American authors of that time. Scholars often consider respectability as the dominant concept of African American sexual politics of this era. I propose, instead, that, under the influence of companionate marriage ideology, African American authors pushed forward the notion of pleasure in the sexual lives of African Americans. The background for this argument is set up in the introduction which provides a historical overview of African American discussions of sex and marriage in the early decades of the twentieth century. The first chapter analyzes W.E.B. Du Bois' promotion of a race-specific, uplift-minded version of companionate marriage, identified specifically as partnership marriage. He expressed his vision of marriage for the race in his nonfiction as well as his novel Dark Princess. In the second chapter, I suggest that Nella Larsen's Quicksand is a critique of traditional, reproduction-centered marriage, while Passing by the same author explores various problems that arise from the expectation of eroticized marriage. The third chapter explicates Zora Neale Hurston's representation of African American companionate marriage in Their Eyes Were Watching God and suggests that it directly opposes existing sexual norms including Du Boisian partnership marriage. The fourth chapter analyzes Wallace Thurman's The Blacker the Berry to argue that Thurman not only considers the institution of marriage as contradictory to the reality of African American men's and women's sexual lives but also proposes an alternative way in which to look at intimate relations. To conclude my argument, I suggest that all the texts discussed in this dissertation share a move from respectable to pleasurable, which is to say, their representations of marriage are premised on the idea that pleasure is fundamentally good (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Debra Moddelmog (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American Literature; History; Womens Studies

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Art History

As the co-owner of Sears, Roebuck & Company, Julius Rosenwald established the Julius Rosenwald Fund in 1917 for “the well-being of mankind” and, by way of a unique fellowship program, supported African Americans and white southerners in a variety of scientific, academic, and cultural fields. Designed specifically to facilitate the accomplishments of “Negro creative workers,” the Rosenwald Fellowship Program became one of the most important sources of funding for black visual artists during the 1930s and 1940s. Although most discussions of patronage by whites during the Harlem Renaissance are limited to figures such as Carl Van Vechten and Charlotte van der Veer Quick Mason, who focused primarily on supporting writers and musicians, only recently have scholars investigated the assistance offered to visual artists. In fact, most information regarding patronage of the visual arts is restricted to isolated reviews and to monographs of individual artists. In this thesis I conduct an in-depth analysis of the creation and administration of the Rosenwald Fellowship Program, not only examining its methods of selection and distribution of financial aid, but also its impact on the development of African American painters, sculptors, and photographers with particular attention to Augusta Savage, William Edouard Scott, Richmond Barth¿¿¿¿, Aaron Douglas, Charles Alston, William Ellisworth Artis, and Haywood “Bill” Rivers, respectively.

Committee: Theresa Leininger-Miller PhD (Committee Chair); Julie Alane Aronson PhD (Committee Member); Mikiko Hirayama PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Art History

The Harlem Renaissance is often remembered for its cultural achievements, but scholars often place too much attention on literary and visual artists with little regard for the musicians of the period. When scholars do make the connection between jazz and the Harlem Renaissance, the work of jazz artists in cities outside of Harlem play second fiddle. In fact, New Orleans and Chicago could just as easily stake the claim as the nation's jazz capital in this period, and so many early jazz innovators emigrated to Chicago's South Side from New Orleans that the Windy City could arguably boast a more vibrant music scene than Harlem. Thanks in no small part to the First Great Migration, when over one million African Americans left the South to stake their claim on the American Dream in the urban North, jazz transitioned from a regional to the national music in the 1910s and 1920s. A number of scholars of the Great Migration have shed light on the grass roots leadership that facilitated northern emigration. In the first few decades of the 20th century, African Americans in scores of cities across the country were busy forging a new collective identity, known as the “New Negro”, as expressed in the visual and performing arts, political protest, and economic enterprise culminating in the Harlem Renaissance. Thanks to several historians the political activism of the literary component of the Harlem Renaissance is well known. Unfortunately, few have made the same connections in regard to the musicians of the period. Jazz made its own Great Migration on the backs of a cadre of grass roots musician leaders whose political awareness has yet to be fully appreciated. These considerations suggest that a deeper analysis of jazz, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the political activism of musicians beyond 135th Street and Lenox Avenue is necessary to uncover the “New Negro” of black music. This dissertation examines the Great Migration through the lens of jazz to explore (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Stradling PhD (Committee Chair); Davarian L. Baldwin PhD (Committee Member); Wendy Kline Paula PhD (Committee Member); Tracy Teslow PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, Germanic Languages and Literatures

Black Ashkenaz and the Almost Promised Land: Yiddish Literature and the Harlem Renaissance explores the relationship between African Americans and Eastern European immigrant Jews (Yiddish-speaking / Ashkenazic Jews) by examining the depictions of each in their respective literatures. The thrust of this project addresses the representations of African Americans in Yiddish literature. An investigation of the depictions of Jews by Harlem Renaissance writers can contribute to the understanding of an African American/Yiddish interface in which attitudes towards each other are played and written out. This linkage of African American and Jewish history, traditions and reflections regarding identity, culture, and language appears at a significant point in the grand narrative of ethnicity and race ideology in the United States. For Yiddish writers, their works regarding African Americans revealed their projection of what it meant to be Black, just as those of Harlem Renaissance writers projected their concept of what it meant to be Jewish, all in a milieu which saw the redefinition of what it meant to be black, to be white, and to be American. Yiddish writers addressed concepts of Blackness and Jewishness with an understanding of what could be gained or lost; the push to become American, the opportunity for social, political and economic mobility and racial alterity was countered by the pull of conflict with respect to assimilation, American conceptualization of exclusion based upon race, and a Jewish consciousness which rejected both.

Committee: David Miller PhD (Committee Chair); Neil Jacobs PhD (Committee Member); Bernd Fischer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Literature; Black History; Comparative Literature; Judaic Studies; Literature; Minority and Ethnic Groups

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2010, English

This thesis pertains to the forgotten women dramatists of the Harlem/New Negro Renaissance of the 1920's and 1930's. It is divided into two parts: Preface and one-act drama. The Preface addresses the problems and issues when researching these women, namely the fact that there is little research devoted solely to their contributions to the movement. Set in the home of Georgia Douglas Johnson in late summer of 1929. Johnson is one of the most prolific women dramatists of the Harlem/New Negro Renaissance, whose works expanded even into the Civil Rights Movement, the one-act drama consists of a meeting between Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston, who is most notable for her non- dramatic works, despite the fact that it was in drama that she first made her mark. The first scene, set in the parlor, attends to the issue of race and how each woman goes about addressing their own representation of how race affects the African American community. In the second scene, the women are in the kitchen and address the most pressing issue of gender relations within the African American community.

Committee: Albino Carrillo MFA (Committee Chair); Stepehn Wilhoit PhD (Committee Member); Joseph Pici MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American History; American Literature; Black History; English literature; Gender; Theater; Womens Studies

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2011, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Charles Chesnutt began his career with an ideology that race should not be a category in which to judge others. He felt that through literature he could help influence society and help create a less racial centric civilization. His career began with positive reviews from short story publications in multiple magazines. However, most critics and readers at the time did not know of Chesnutt's racial background. It was not until his second collection of short stories that Chesnutt revealed the truth about his heritage. After his success with The Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth (both published in 1899), Chesnutt began to assert his political agenda more aggressively into his writing. His second novel The Marrow of Tradition (1901) received very poor reviews; critics were repulsed by Chesnutt's revolutionary philosophies concerning the racial caste system. The poor reception of Chesnutt's three novels forced him to retire from a literary career. Years later, during the Harlem Renaissance, a time of prolific African American writers, Chesnutt was disappointed in the baseness of black characters in literature. He scolded Harlem Renaissance writers for their lack of strong black characters, but Chesnutt's short stories that were published in The Crisis also lacked the racial uplift that he so desperately sought. Chesnutt's intensity of racial relation literature had dwindled over time and he left it to the next generation of writers to fulfill the social agenda that his literature was never able to achieve.

Committee: Frederick J. Karem PhD (Committee Chair); Adrienne Gosselin PhD (Committee Member); Adam Sonstegard PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2007, American Culture Studies/English

The 1920s in American history saw a political movement through the Harlem Renaissance. This literary movement gave itself the task of promoting black cultural values that were underestimated in American culture. In search for civil rights for African Americans under the intellectual leadership of W.E.B Du Bois and other N.A.A.C.P members, the Harlem Renaissance succeeded in wresting the black community's confidence from Booker T. Washington, who thought the solution to black problems should absolutely be integrationist. Because integration meant limited education and discrimination, Du Bois advocated the right of African Americans to higher education for the fulfillment of their political duties that the Constitution has assigned them. Starting from a theoretical approach to racial problems in his early books, Du Bois practically intervened in the concretization of Pan-Africanism. This project remains a political challenge to the black Diaspora to build a stronger cultural entity against imperialism today.

Committee: Erin Labbie (Advisor) Subjects: