Introduction. Intimate Distance-Faith and Doubts of the Cultural Fathers -- Chapter 1. "Old as Religion, as Delphi and Endor": Secular Patrimony in Souls of Black Folk -- Chapter 2. "He Didn't Come to Help Me": Folk Paternity and Failed Conversions in Langston Hughes -- Chapter 3. "Artificial Men": Anti-intellectualism, Christianity, and Cultural Leadership -- Chapter 4. "Leave All That Littleness and Look Higher": The Educated Man as Hero and Martyr -- Chapter 5. "That Good Man, That Godly Man": Abusive Ministers and Educated Lovers in Oscar Micheaux and Nella Larsen -- Chapter 6. "A Polished Man of Strength and Power": Race, Body, and Spirit in the Harlem Renaissance -- Chapter 7. "The Singing Man Who Must Be Reckoned With": Private Desire and Public Responsibility in the Poetry of Countee Cullen -- Chapter 8. "Gods of Physical Violence, Stopping at Nothing": Masculinity, Physicality, and Creativity in Zora Neale Hurston -- Conclusion. Goodbye Christ? Christianity and African American Literary History.
Summary:
"This book discusses the role of religion, or more specifically the shunning of a predominant white view of religion for a more independent black religious voice, in the writings of authors active during the Harlem Renaissance. Powers discusses the work of Du Bois, Hurston, Larsen, Toomer, and others and contends that religious contexts shaped the rhetoric and imagination of African American writers during the Harlem Renaissance, and, to a degree, dispelled previous religious notions of masculinity for a more secular view"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.