NO DEFINITE DESTINATION: TRANSNATIONAL LIMINALITY IN HARLEM RENAISSANCE LIVES AND WRITINGS A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Joshua M. Murray May 2016 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials Dissertation written by Joshua M. Murray B.A., University of Georgia, 2008 M.A., University of Georgia, 2011 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2016 Approved by Babacar M’Baye , Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Claire A. Culleton , Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Robert W. Trogdon , Kenneth J. Bindas , Landon E. Hancock , Accepted by Robert W. Trogdon , Chair, Department of English James L. Blank , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION .....................................................................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. vi AUTHOR’S NOTE .......................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION Toward a New Black Transnationalism ..........................................................1 CHAPTERS I. Claude McKay’s Transnational/Transitional Identity ..................................22 The Wandering Vagabond in Home to Harlem and Banjo ...........................25 Gendered Liminality in Gingertown and Banana Bottom ............................40 II. Racial Escapism in Nella Larsen’s Fiction ...................................................59 Elusive Freedom in Quicksand .....................................................................63 Liminal Captivity in Passing ........................................................................73 III. Jessie Redmon Fauset and the Black American’s French Dream.................87 The Class Ceiling in There Is Confusion ......................................................92 The Transnational Savior in Plum Bun .......................................................103 The Intraracial In-Between in The Chinaberry Tree ..................................111 Transnational Failure in Comedy: American Style .....................................119 IV. Authorial Emplacement in Langston Hughes’s Life Writings ...................138 Setting the Global Stage in The Big Sea .....................................................145 Around the World Home: I Wonder as I Wander and Beyond ..................162 iii CONCLUSION Continuing a New Black Transnationalism ................................................180 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................192 iv For Kendra, Silas, and Zelda v Acknowledgments This project was years in the making, and I owe a great deal of it to my dissertation director, Babacar M’Baye. Prior to our first discussion, I had only an inkling of what exactly transnationalism entailed. In the many conversations since, he has offered innumerable suggestions that made my ideas become a tangible reality. On a personal level, he has been the most encouraging and supportive mentor I have encountered. After every meeting, I left with a renewed sense that I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing. I thank him for going above and beyond to help me succeed. Robert W. Trogdon was instrumental not only in my approach to this dissertation but throughout my time as a doctoral student. From my very first semester, he showed an interest in my work, and he pushed me to seek the highest quality in each of my projects. Claire A. Culleton offered some much needed editorial insight throughout the entire process. I appreciate her willingness to provide a different perspective that clearly improved the final product. I would also like to thank my cohort at Kent State for their friendship and input over the years; Kevin Floyd for his invaluable support; Kenneth J. Bindas for his historical expertise; the departmental staff who kept me on the right track each semester; and Christopher Allen Varlack for agreeing to publish excerpts of this project in Critical Insights: Harlem Renaissance. I want to thank the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for granting me access to the Langston Hughes Papers, which proved instrumental in my fourth chapter. I also want to thank the Kent State University vi Graduate Student Senate for awarding me the research grant that enabled me to travel to New Haven in the first place. Finally, I never would have made it this far without the unconditional support from my family. My parents, Mike and Crystal Murray, and my sister, Jordan Cook, contributed to the loving environment of my youth and were among the first to back me when I chose to follow the academic path. I thank them for always believing in me along the way. My beautiful wife, Kendra, experienced this journey with me day in and day out. She has been more than supportive, offering me the calm words and reassurances I needed when I thought the end was nowhere in sight. In addition to showing me love at every turn, she has given me the two best gifts: our children, Silas and Zelda. The three of them have sacrificed countless hours as I spent time away researching, conferencing, and writing. I hope to return those hours in the years to come. More than for anyone else, this is for them. vii Author’s Note For the title of this dissertation, I chose the phrase “no definite destination,” which appears in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928). This line occurs near the end of the novel when Helga Crane has reached the climax of her liminality. She despondently leaves her apartment in the rain and wanders aimlessly through the Harlem streets, needing transition more than anything. I feel that this scene succinctly epitomizes the pairing of transnationalism and liminality that the lives and writings of the included authors evince. As the motivating force behind my study, racial liminality—especially when exhibited through the works of twentieth-century African Americans—necessarily lends itself toward physical transition. As Helga’s situation exemplifies, the choice for travel and movement is the tangible manifestation of the desire to escape the intangible effects of a marginalized (liminal) social position. This places the emphasis on the act of leaving, with the destination itself receiving less weight. For a group of writings and writers that emphasizes the act of moving/transitioning above the endpoint itself, this phrase offers an appropriate title. viii Introduction Toward a New Black Transnationalism Literature is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I’m still pulling. (335) Langston Hughes, The Big Sea The concept of transnationalism occupies a unique academic space, in that the term itself is relatively new even though scholars and theorists have been considering its significance and effects under the purview of other related fields for years. As a term that refers to both an interdisciplinary field and a theory, transnationalism explores a variety of areas and subjects including economics, politics, history, literature, religion, art, and culture. Yet, despite its broad scope, the concept of transnationalism particularly focuses on past and current theories of postcolonialism, internationalism, and globalization from which it stems. Certain scholars, specifically Paul Jay and John Cullen Gruesser, have emphasized the interplay of these concepts in relation to literary studies. At the same time, other disciplines have begun to incorporate a transnational framework, even if scholars in those fields do not explicitly use the title of “transnationalism.” Essentially, the academy as a whole is trending toward a transnational worldview. Yet the appeal of transnationalism particularly comes from the popularity that the concept has achieved in recent years with the advent of groundbreaking works since the publication of Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness in 1993. Through this text, Gilroy presents a compelling argument for the connections across national and continental boundaries. More than two decades following its 1 publication, The Black Atlantic remains a key text in understanding and examining a black transnational identity, as scholars including Laurent Dubois, Julius S. Scott, and Lucy Evans continue to consider and reconsider the contemporary applications of Gilroy’s theory. Whereas Sanjeev Khagram and Peggy Levitt’s monumental collection The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations (2008) thrives in its ability to broaden and relate Transnational Studies to encompass a vast number of fields and concepts, Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic utilizes the key tenets of transnationalism to flesh out his narrower theory of a Black Atlantic. Gilroy’s book has proven influential to Transnational Studies, Pan-African Studies, and African-American Studies alike. Tellingly, Khagram and Levitt include an excerpt of Gilroy’s work in their volume. While Gilroy focuses heavily on the interplay and connections between Great Britain and the United States, the value of his work lies in its ability to reconfigure the idea of national borders/boundaries and the Atlantic Ocean itself as important theoretical constructs in the study of black transnational cultures and literatures.