Black Land: Imperial Ethiopianism and African America

by Nadia Nurhussein

Overview

The first book to explore how African American writing and art engaged with visions of Ethiopia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

As the only African nation, with the exception of Liberia, to remain independent during the colonization of the continent, Ethiopia has long held significance for and captivated the imaginations of African Americans. In Black Land, Nadia Nurhussein delves into nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American artistic and journalistic depictions of Ethiopia, illuminating the increasing tensions and ironies behind cultural celebrations of an African country asserting itself as an imperial power.

Nurhussein navigates texts by Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Pauline Hopkins, Harry Dean, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, George Schuyler, and others, alongside images and performances that show the intersection of African America with Ethiopia during historic political shifts. From a description of a notorious 1920 Star Order of Ethiopia flag-burning demonstration in Chicago to a discussion of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as Time magazine’s Man of the Year for 1935, Nurhussein illuminates the growing complications that modern Ethiopia posed for American writers and activists. American media coverage of the African nation exposed a clear contrast between the Pan-African ideal and the modern reality of Ethiopia as an antidemocratic imperialist state: Did Ethiopia represent the black nation of the future, or one of an inert and static past?

Revising current understandings of black transnationalism, Black Land presents a well-rounded exploration of an era when Ethiopia’s presence in African American culture was at its height.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691234625
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/07/2022
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nadia Nurhussein is associate professor of English and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Recognizing the Ethiopian Flag 21

Chapter 2 Pauline E. Hopkins and the Shadow of Transcription 51

Chapter 3 Fashioning the Imperial Self 72

Chapter 4 Imperial Embellishment 90

Chapter 5 Empire on the World Stage 119

Chapter 6 Martial Ethiopianism in Verse 144

Chapter 7 George S. Schuyler and the Appeal of Imperial Ethiopia 169

Chapter 8 Claude McKay and the Display of Aristocracy 192

Conclusion Langston Hughes's Business Suit 209

Notes 215

Bibliography 235

Index 251

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“One of the most nuanced studies of Ethiopia and modern black cultural production, Black Land deploys uncommon subtlety and verve in insightful readings of a wide swath of material—from literature and political speeches to plays and journalism. Nurhussein offers a critique of the overlapping political geographies of European colonialism, U.S. black nationalism, and Abyssinian imperialism, and a trenchant reassessment of how the territories of empire have always extended beyond land.”—Ivy Wilson, Northwestern University

“Black Land demonstrates how the Ethiopia imagined by African America exists as a once and future civilization, evolving from fabulist idealizations of an ancient culture to a publicly debated, politically ambivalent model of anticolonial force. Through a meticulously assembled visual and textual archive, this long-awaited book advances spectacularly our understanding of black transnationalism and imperialism during the past two centuries.”—Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“This is a sweeping literary and cultural history of a black imperialism that has never before come into full view. Focusing on the nation of Ethiopia and its spheres of influence, Black Land historicizes and internationalizes what is too often understood as a mythic abstraction. From minstrelsy and black performance to poetry, film, and the periodical press, Nurhussein brushes Ethiopianism against the grain to provide a new look at the cultures of imperialism in African America.” —Susan Gillman, University of California, Santa Cruz

"Bolstered by rigorous archival research and sharp critical analysis, this book shows the significance of Ethiopia in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century African American culture. Drawing on an impressive array of texts, Nurhussein captures with great texture not only how the figure of Ethiopia changed in African American literature, but also how Ethiopia supplied African Americans a distinct paradigm of blackness, nationhood, and diaspora. Incisively argued and elegantly written, this is a touchstone work."—Dagmawi Woubshet, University of Pennsylvania

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the MSA Book Prize, Modernist Studies Association

Finalist for the Pauli Murray Book Prize, African American Intellectual History Society

Shortlisted for the MAAH Stone Book Award, Museum of African American History

From the Publisher