Simply to Be Americans? Literary Radicals Confront Monopoly Capitalism, 1885-1938 [Hardback]

Simply to Be Americans? - Joel Wendland-Liu

Simply to Be Americans? Literary Radicals Confront Monopoly Capitalism, 1885-1938

by Joel Wendland-Liu (Grand Valley State University)

Purchase this book

Hardback

$ 101

Availability: In stock

currency displayed based on your location
(click here to change currency)

Wendland-Liu deftly navigates decades of radical literary figures who struggled with the question of “what is an American?” during a defining era of American monopoly capitalism, imperialism, and racial and class subjugation. A work of theory, literary analysis, history, and social commentary, “Simply to Be Americans?” re-imagines American literary icons while introducing audiences to lesser-known authors and thinkers who, undaunted, forged a revolutionary social tradition that continues to demand more of our shared cultural identity of “American.” “Simply to Be Americans?” is an important addition to revolutionary’s library.

Prof. Dr. Melissa Ford
Slippery Rock University

“Simply to Be Americans?” is a wide-ranging and sensitive investigation of different strands of U.S. literary radicalism that critiqued monopoly capitalism through the adoption or rejection of different modes of being "American" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Wendland-Liu excels in close readings that give new insights into texts that we thought we knew and put those texts in discussion with others we may not have considered before.

Prof. Dr. James Smethurst
W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies
University of Massachusetts-Amherst

'Simply to Be Americans?' delves into the transformative power of radical U.S. literature from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, uncovering how writers boldly confronted the intertwined forces of Americanism, capitalism, racism, imperialism, and patriarchy. Through the works of visionaries like Lucy Parsons, Albert Parsons, and Sutton Griggs, this book reveals how early literary radicals challenged the foundations of monopoly capitalism and white supremacy, planting the seeds for a culture of resistance that would flourish in the decades to come.
Exploring the speculative genius of Mark Twain, Jack London, Gertrude Nafe, and W.E.B. Du Bois, 'Simply to Be Americans?' showcases how allegory and satire became powerful tools to dismantle nationalism, imperialism, and racial hierarchies. While these pioneers often grappled with the complexity of these systems, a study of their work illuminated both the possibilities and limitations of early radical thought.
As the twentieth century unfolded, U.S. writers embraced revolutionary internationalism, forging connections between domestic struggles and global anti-imperialist movements. Figures like John Reed and Hubert Harrison championed solidarity across borders, while the Russian Revolution and worldwide labor uprisings inspired a new wave of politically charged art. Writers like Genevieve Taggard and W.E.B. Du Bois called for literature that expresses urgent struggles against systemic oppression.
In the 1920s and 1930s, luminaries like Mary Burrill, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, H.T. Tsiang, Josefina Niggli, Lola Ridge, and Dorothy West rejected assimilation, exposing American society’s capitalist and imperialist core. Their works vividly exposed the intersections of race, class, and gender, advocating for unity among the oppressed.
'Simply to Be Americans?' redefines the legacy of U.S. radical literature, tracing its evolution and celebrating its enduring impact. This groundbreaking study reveals how these writers critiqued their world and laid the foundation for future movements against exploitation and injustice, offering timeless insights into today’s struggles.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: A 100-Year-Old Question
The historical and literary context, with a chapter outline
Chapter 1 Fugitive Freedom: Anarchist, Feminist, and Black Nationalist Critiques of America
Fleeing patriarchy alone
Collective fugitivity
Precarious texts, in closing
Chapter 2 Allegory and Satire in Radical Speculative Fiction
Twain’s assassination fantasies
Hopeful annihilation
Anti-capitalist allegory
Chapter 3 “This is my land and I love it”: Emergence of Revolutionary Internationalism
Four editorials and the “yellow peril”
Emergent revolutionary internationalism
Black radical internationalism and the “white world’s” “mad dance of death” A transition
Chapter 4 Capitalism’s Gravediggers: Radical Literary Thought in the 1920s
Radical literary exchanges
Toomer and the geography of raceMediations of space and relations
The social power of sight
Claude McKay and Americanism on trial
Dorothy West and the aesthetics of alienation
Chapter 5 “Unconformity to the American Scene”: Subject, Nation, World
Three unlikely texts
More radical maps
Josefina Niggli and the Mexican allegory
Closing remarks
Chapter 6 “Good Morning Revolution”: Tracing Materialist Poetics
“You are the Dawn”: Lola Ridge’s revolutionary lyric
Langston Hughes and a new national-popular poetics
America on trial
Socialist poetics with Chinese characteristics
In sum: poetry’s radical materiality
Conclusion: Fugitivity, Confrontation, and Periodization
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Dr. Joel Wendland-Liu is the author of 'Mythologies: A Political Economy of U.S. Literature in the Long Nineteenth-Century' and 'The Collectivity of Life: Spaces of Social Mobility and the Individualism Myth.' He is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. His teaching and research lie at the intersection of Marxist studies, literary criticism, and histories of racial capitalism.

Marxist literary criticism, monopoly capitalism, African American literature, Asian American literature, proletarian literature, anarchism and literature, communism and literature, socialism, materialist poetics, labor movements