Nadia Nurhussein
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691190969
- eISBN:
- 9780691194134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691190969.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter focuses on Pauline E. Hopkins's “Of One Blood” in the context of the African American periodical in which it was serialized, the Colored American Magazine. Published only a few years ...
More
This chapter focuses on Pauline E. Hopkins's “Of One Blood” in the context of the African American periodical in which it was serialized, the Colored American Magazine. Published only a few years after the surprising Italian defeat at Adwa, “Of One Blood” contributed to the magazine's project of “documentary Ethiopianism” as expressed in histories and biographies but it also preserved the fantastic conception of Ethiopia that helped create Ethiopianism. “Of One Blood” is exemplary as a fictional text that introduces the mysticism that the historical and ethnographic texts of the Colored American Magazine avoid while still participating in documentary Ethiopianism by sending its characters to Ethiopia. The chapter also discusses how “Of One Blood” activates Regalization Fantasy, which is intrinsic to imperial Ethiopianist ideology. As a result of the fantasy's paradoxical inclusivity and exclusivity, the imperial model of Ethiopianism seen in “Of One Blood” contains the irritant that leads to its own dismantling by mid-century.Less
This chapter focuses on Pauline E. Hopkins's “Of One Blood” in the context of the African American periodical in which it was serialized, the Colored American Magazine. Published only a few years after the surprising Italian defeat at Adwa, “Of One Blood” contributed to the magazine's project of “documentary Ethiopianism” as expressed in histories and biographies but it also preserved the fantastic conception of Ethiopia that helped create Ethiopianism. “Of One Blood” is exemplary as a fictional text that introduces the mysticism that the historical and ethnographic texts of the Colored American Magazine avoid while still participating in documentary Ethiopianism by sending its characters to Ethiopia. The chapter also discusses how “Of One Blood” activates Regalization Fantasy, which is intrinsic to imperial Ethiopianist ideology. As a result of the fantasy's paradoxical inclusivity and exclusivity, the imperial model of Ethiopianism seen in “Of One Blood” contains the irritant that leads to its own dismantling by mid-century.
Ira Dworkin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469632711
- eISBN:
- 9781469632735
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469632711.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter traces the influence of travelers like William and Lucy Gantt Sheppard on more conventionally fictionalized literary work by authors like Hopkins who never traveled to Africa themselves. ...
More
This chapter traces the influence of travelers like William and Lucy Gantt Sheppard on more conventionally fictionalized literary work by authors like Hopkins who never traveled to Africa themselves. Her novel Of One Blood, which was first serialized in the influential Colored American Magazine, where she was an editor, is indicative of the way that broadly internationalist culture circulating around the Congo, and other geopolitical spaces, was grounded in the black press. This chapter argues that connections between Of One Blood and the missionary careers of the Sheppards illuminate the transatlantic routes that have contributed to the development of African American literature and culture, further challenging common generalizations that, in the early twentieth century, modern Africa was unknown to African Americans. Early twentieth century American representations of Africa, such as Of One Blood, were informed by intellectual networks of writers and activists that were nurtured through the black press as well as literary societies, civic organizations, HBCUs, and religious institutions.Less
This chapter traces the influence of travelers like William and Lucy Gantt Sheppard on more conventionally fictionalized literary work by authors like Hopkins who never traveled to Africa themselves. Her novel Of One Blood, which was first serialized in the influential Colored American Magazine, where she was an editor, is indicative of the way that broadly internationalist culture circulating around the Congo, and other geopolitical spaces, was grounded in the black press. This chapter argues that connections between Of One Blood and the missionary careers of the Sheppards illuminate the transatlantic routes that have contributed to the development of African American literature and culture, further challenging common generalizations that, in the early twentieth century, modern Africa was unknown to African Americans. Early twentieth century American representations of Africa, such as Of One Blood, were informed by intellectual networks of writers and activists that were nurtured through the black press as well as literary societies, civic organizations, HBCUs, and religious institutions.
