Jean Toomer and Cultural Pluralism |
Jean Toomer and Cultural Pluralism
Gino Michael Pellegrini: Education, Race, Multiraciality, Class & Solidarity
2014-03-21
Gino Michael Pellegrini, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English
Pierce College, Woodland Hills, California
[This short paper was originally written for “Jean Toomer and Politics,” a Special Session Roundtable at the 2012 MLA Conference in Seattle. I have made a few edits.]
In disagreeing with Rudolph Byrd and Henry Louis Gates Jr., I will not directly critique their support and rhetorical strategies. Instead, I will put forth my own interpretation of Toomer’s political vision. Toomer saw literature as his means to address socioeconomic inequalities, transform himself, and influence people in a manner that would advance the promise of democracy in America. We should ask then, not whether he identified as black or white, but what his political vision is, what it is not, and what it entails. Specifically, I argue that his political vision conflicts with the cultural pluralisms of his mentors, Alain Locke and Waldo Frank, and anticipates some postethnic, cosmopolitan, and multiracial perspectives that have emerged in recent history in strong opposition to the limitations and problems of multiculturalism…
Read the entire paper here.
Tags: Gino M. Pellegrini, Gino Michael Pellegrini, Gino Pellegrini, Jean Toomer