Sweeney, Fionnghuala, and Kate Marsh, eds. Afromodernisms: Paris, Harlem and the Avant-garde. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2013. Print.
< Summary >
Afromodernisms (2013), edited by Sweeny and Marsh, provides systematic assessments of black diasporic modernity and black cultural developments in Paris, Caribbean islands and Harlem in the early twentieth century. By connecting those urban cities and multicultural islands in the context of African diaspora, the editors clearly illustrate the multidirectional influences of Afromodernisms and the linkages among those crucial centers of black culture. Sweeny and Marsh successfully point out that those black cultural creativities were the responses to the “modern formations of political subjectivity” (2). It is important to note that their view-points about politics and arts adhere fundamentally to Alain Locke’s perspective. These 9 new chapters are consistent in this point that those black cultural creations cannot be examined without thinking about the social formations and political situations around that time.
The first part of the book is dedicated to the Afromodernism in Paris. Starting with the first chapter written by Tyler Strovall, a distinguished scholar on this particular topic and the author of Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (1996), casts a enduring question about the correlation between politics and arts in conjunction with black transnational modernism: to what extent, can it be argued that black cultural outputs are the results of “a reactionary political agenda” (19)? In response to this question, Strovall defines 1919 as the beginning of the black modern world and attributes it to the two following components: the Pan-African Congress of 1919 and the arrival of jazz in Paris.
The second chapter written by Przemystaw Strozek focuses on the “primitivism” of black culture, especially jazz, and how it was incorporated into the other form of art, Italian Futurism. The initial political influence of Italian Fascism cannot be overlooked when it comes to considering the decline of Italian Futurism. In the third chapter, James Smalls presents the less-noted figure Féral Benga, a Senegalese black male dancer, as a counterpart of Josephine Baker, who has gone on to stardom in Paris by taking advantage of her ‘exotic’ beauty. Benga’s visual body politics reveals not only racial bigotry but also homophobic bias prevailing in the white modern world.
The second part of the book directs attention to the Afromodernism in Caribbean islands. Claudine Raynaud and Samantha Pinto both look into the ethnographic researches of Zora Neale Hurston and black modernity in Haiti and Jamaica. While Raynaud delineates the developments of anthropology as a scholarship through Hurston’s works, Pinto discusses Hurston’s position as an anthropologist and as a black vernacular culture proponent. Claudia Hucke examines the artistic contribution of Karl Parboosingh, a Jamaican artist, to Jamaican cultural innovations in the post-colonial era and how he created the disruptions in the Western discourse of avant-garde.
The last part of Afromodernisms centers on the discussions on the black modernity in Harlem. Celeste-Marie Bernier looks at the destructive effects of WWI on black artists and how they were inspired by the beautiful sceneries in Europe and at the same time they were motivated to create a counter-discourse against the theme of ‘war on democracy’ of WWI because of racial discriminations directed to them in the Services of Supply Divisions. Barbara Lewis devotes her attention to the unnoticed three African American educators and play writers and how those black artists created their own works in the context of lynching. Finally, in the ninth chapter, Rachel Farebrother re-examines the role of Egypt in the artistic works of the generations from the Harlem Renaissance.
< Review >
Afromodernisms definitely opens up a new discussion on black diasporic modernity not only in Paris and Harlem but also in Caribbean islands, which were often disregarded and not associated with the terminology of modernity. In this brief review, I would like to bring up two novel attempts which Sweeny and Marsh made and two limitations which they confronted in this book. However, those two limitations are primarily the products of the structure of the book. Therefore, they should not necessarily be considered as fatal mistakes in their methodologies and analyses.
As I noted in the summary, the editors direct their attentions to primary three centers of black culture, Paris, Caribbean islands, and Harlem. In the early 20th century, it is evident that those urban cities like Paris and Harlem were on the process of modernization by going through the confrontations between white mainstream modernity and black modernity. It was novel that the editors creates a section in the book about the Afromodernism in Caribbean islands because it has been less-noted compared to those two urban modernized cities. Also, their attempts to highlight the linkage between those modernities beyond the boundaries bring about various unmarked black artistic outcomes such as Italian Futurism, Cubism, Feral Benga, Karl Parboosingh. However, because of their intention to pay multidirectional attentions to those linkages, it seems that the ties between the articles within the same category became weaker and are not strongly connected in terms of contents. In the Caribbean section, there were two articles discuss Zora Neale Hurston and her contributions to black modernity in Caribbean islands, primarily in Haiti and Jamaica. But other articles in Paris and Harlem sections, there are less close connections among those articles within the same category because of their attempts to underline the linkage among those different categories. This is the first limitation which Sweeny and Marsh confronts in the book.
The second limitation is the exclusion of Afromodernism in African continent. Although I am not familiar with black modernity within African continent in the early 20th century, it seems that the lack of African section makes their attempts incomplete. If Sweeny and Marsh tried to underscore the cultural exchanges among those four locations including Africa, their intentions would have been evaluated as a great accomplishment since Africa is the starting-point of this transnational linkages. Even though they make an attempt to connect Africa with those three sections, it seems incomplete without a separate and individual section of Afromodernism in Africa.
Despite these two limitations, Afromodernisms provides me with an effective tool to look at Afromodernism. The first accomplishment of the book would be the piece of Strovall. Locating his article at the very first chapter enables readers to capture a theme of the book, which is highlighting the relationship between politics and black arts. His comparison of a transnational political movement, the Pan-African Congress of 1919, and the flexibility and adjustability of black music, especially jazz, establishes the foundation to hold a perspective to look at black arts and aesthetics and what kind of circumstances they resulted from. As Strovall quoted Alain Locke’s philosophy about the relationship between politics and arts, black artistic products were the responses to white European or American modernity. Toni Morrison once said, “all good art has always been political” (Taylor-Guthrie 3). Black arts have always been the reflections of black political subjectivities but this tendency was more obvious at this particular moment of time.
The other accomplishment which Sweeny and Marsh make in this book is to elaborate the cultural influence of black music, especially jazz, on Afromodernism in those three sections, Harlem, Caribbean islands, and Paris. Originating from New Orleans, where there were a lot of Creole population in the early 20th century, it became the major musical form of the United States at the time without doubts. Interestingly, jazz transcended the Atlantic oceans and went to Paris, where jazz also became the most popular form of music particularly in Montmartre. Not only did Strovall talk about jazz but also other authors of the book (except Raynaud and Pinto) emphasize the significance of jazz and its influence on other artistic forms in other part of Europe (Strozek talks about how Italian Futurists got inspirations from jazz) and Caribbean islands (Hucke discuss the exoticism of jazz which can be related to jazz). It is evident that Sweeny and Marsh try to make the linkage among those three places through Black music as a cultural connection.
In Conclusion, it is no exaggeration to say that Afromodernisms is one of the greatest books about black diasporic modernity in the early 20th century. Their selections of those new 9 essays are connected in the context of Afromodernism. I would love to see their completed works including Afromodernism in Africa someday.
