"Joel and Arthur Spingarn were privileged, white, and Jewish. Born into an upper-class New York City family (in 1875 and 1878, respectively), the brothers quickly forged notable careers as young professionals-Joel as a highly regarded professor at Columbia University; Arthur as a lawyer in a top Manhattan firm. Their busy lifestyles included interests in local clubs, hobbies, and travel. Soon, however, the two would veer off on a very different path, one that shaped them as nationally recognized leaders of racial justice activism and long-time heroes to thousands of Black citizens who benefited from their persistence and generosity. Their discussions about the need for equal rights and opportunities found them drawn to meetings of an upstart group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and, by 1910, Joel Spingarn was elected to the group's Executive Committee, while his brother was named as an NAACP vice president. Throughout their careers, the brothers both took terms as NAACP presidents and struggled with numerous disappointments and setbacks, hand in hand with brilliant successes, as they participated in an aggressive forward movement toward equal treatment and rights for all. In this dual biography, Katherine Chaddock explores how their family history, including their childhood experiences and the nature of Jewish faith and teaching, shaped the Spingarn brothers' personal and professional lives into something far from what might have been anticipated from their privileged backgrounds"--

This engaging study returns to a truly remarkable year, the year in which both Ulysses and The Waste Land were published, in which The Great Gatsby was set, and during which the Fascisti took over in Italy, the Irish Free State was born, the Harlem Renaissance reached its peak, Charlie Chaplin's popularity crested, and King Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered. In short, the year which not only in hindsight became the primal scene of literary modernism but which served as the cradle for a host of major political and aesthetic transformations resonating around the globe. In his previous study, the acclaimed Dialect of Modernism (OUP, 1994), Michael North looked at the racial and linguistic struggles over the English language which gave birth to the many strains of modernism. Here, he expands his vision to encompass the global stage, and tells the story of how books changed the future of the world as we know it in one unforgettable year.

Although Henry Green has been recognised by James Wood, David Lodge and John Updike as one of the most innovative writers of his time, his significant achievement remains largely neglected. Henry Green at the Limits of Modernism provides a theoretically sophisticated and historically nuanced reading of Green's novels and makes the case for Green's importance in reconsiderations of modernism, late modernism and post-war realism. This work is the most ambitious reassessment of Green's oeuvre to date and thus critical reading for scholars interested in modernism, late modernism, and the evolution of British post-war fiction. Arguing against the predominant view of Green's fiction as an autonomous literary construction, the work connects Green to a number of social and literary contexts, resulting in fresh readings of his novels and also a greater accessibility to an author long considered 'oblique' and 'elusive'. With significant investigations of Green's connection to his literary generation, his multifaceted and formally innovative handling of social class, his negotiations of narrative authority and authorship, and the importance of disability studies to understanding Green's fiction, this study charts the complex trajectories of Green's fiction against both social and literary contexts. The work also moves beyond the narrow confines of British literature to explore Green's connections to broader trends in European literature.

By restoring interracial dimensions left out of accounts of the Harlem Renaissance--or blamed for corrupting it--George Hutchinson transforms our understanding of black (and white) literary modernism, interracial literary relations, and twentieth-century cultural nationalism in the United States.