Politics of Respectability in Claude McKay's Banjo

Presenter

Julia Rosa Conturso

Campus

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Sponsor

Hannah Haynes, Interdisciplinary Studies, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Schedule

Session 2, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board C30, Poster Showcase Room (163), Row 3 (C21-C30) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

In the devising of this piece of literary criticism, I used interdisciplinary methodologies to interpret Claude McKay’s Banjo: A Story without a Plot (1929). With a Critical Race Theory and Ethnic Studies approach, I analyze the ideological work McKay performs in his development of setting and characters. “The Ditch,” located in Le Vieux Port of Marseille, is a lively community struggling to survive against the grains of Racial Capitalism and Western civilization. As the name suggests, its inhabitants are of Marseille’s undermost class—scarce in capital but abundant in culture and camaraderie. As France’s largest seaport, Le Vieux Port is an apt location to imagine cosmopolitanism and diasporic movement from primarily Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States to Europe. Banjo, the novel’s picaro, and Ray, McKay’s stand in, are the foremost confluences of Le Vieux Port’s exchange of experiences, stories, and ideas. Their development throughout the novel is the coalescence of interactions with their incredibly dynamic environment. Through these literary elements, I argue that McKay challenges politics of respectability and Alain Locke’s “The New Negro”—exclusionary frameworks nourished during the Harlem Renaissance. I discuss the transnational scope of these frameworks and their relation to the novel’s advancement of Pan Africanism and Subjugated Knowledges. I reference the work of multitudinous theorists and creatives in my historical contextualization and literary analysis, as well as scholarship engaging with Banjo and Claude McKay. 

Keywords

Claude McKay, Politics of Respectability, Alain Locke, The Harlem Renaissance, Literary Critisism

Research Area

Literature

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