Word, Image, and the New Negro: Representation and Identity in the Harlem Renaissance [Paperback]

This book focuses on the collaborative illustrated volumes published during the Harlem Renaissance, in which African Americans used written and visual texts to shape ideas about themselves and to redefine African American identity. Anne Elizabeth Carroll argues that these volumes show how participants in the movement engaged in the processes of representation and identity formation in sophisticated and largely successful ways. Though they have received little scholarly attention, these volumes constitute an important aspect of the cultural production of the Harlem Renaissance.Word, Image, and the New Negromarks the beginning of a long-overdue recovery of this legacy and points the way to a greater understanding of the potential of texts to influence social change.

A study of the interaction of word and image in the creative work of the Harlem Renaissance

Anne Elizabeth Carroll is Associate Professor of English at Wichita State University.

Carroll's book would serve well in an upper-level undergraduate course as an introductory study of the interaction of texts and visuals in American magazines of the twentieth century. Her ideas are generally clear . . . and easy to follow.Vol. 50:1/2

. . . The author's analysis of how the illustrations amplify and create tension with the writing and how they empower and sometimes disempower their subjects is the first critical work in this important area. Generously illustrated. Highly recommended.

A very welcome contribution to the contemporary rethinking of the period. By calling our attention to the images that consistently and significantly appeared alongside some of the well-remembered texts of the Harlem Renaissance, Carroll foregrounds the very modernity that the New Negro Movement sought self-consciously to embrace. . . . Carroll's eye for the particular will have both a helpful and inspiring effect on readers who want to continue building on the work she has done here.

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