Enter the New Negroes

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“Martha Jane Nadell brings a fresh approach to the study of ‘the New Negro.’ Nadell’s account explores the debate among African American artists about African American identity: what or who were the New Negroes, and how best to represent them? …Nadell should be applauded for her skilful handling of both visual and textual representations and for raising important, but hitherto neglected, questions about how these two forms interact, in a way that must change the way in which we read familiar texts.”—Kate Dossett, Journal of American Studies

“In exploring the relation between both literary and visual works and the artists who produced them, Martha Nadell offers a novel approach to a well-worn subject in a major contribution to our understanding of modernism and African-American literature. She brilliantly links an interpretation of word and image with an exceptional sense of historical trajectory. Enter the New Negroes establishes Nadell as an important and original scholar.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“Enter the New Negroes is ambitious, vibrant, and original. To my knowledge there is no other work that explores the relationship between the visual and textual elements discussed here. The book is a unique contribution to African-American studies, American literature and art history. It provides detailed and creative readings of image and text as well as the relationship between them. Nadell’s most important contribution is her discussion of the collaboration between writers and visual artists who together helped to create ‘the New Negro.’”—Farah Jasmine Griffin, Columbia University

“An impressive, at times brilliant, analysis of the relationship between visual images and black literature. Nadell brings new insights to the discussion of black culture and finds new and provocative messages in the texts she examines. This important work is a major contribution to American literary and visual arts history.”—Jeffrey C. Stewart, George Mason University

“A brilliant, pioneering work that cuts across genres with great intellectual agility and superb scholarly complexity.”—Cornel West, Princeton University