“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency

Within the Harlem Renaissance’s politically charged climate, a discourse of anti-decadence emerged to police the boundaries of racial solidarity and to ward off the public specter of flamboyant homosexuality associated with European aestheticism. However, self-styled bohemian Richard Bruce Nugent (...

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Autor principal:	Ryan Tracy
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN IT
Publicado:	Università degli Studi di Torino 2019
Materias:	Richard Bruce Nugent, Decadence, New Negro Renaissance, Ethiopianism, Italian Fascism, Queer Theory America E11-143 American literature PS1-3576
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/abaa4d91e64645519ff4de26b27757c0
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:abaa4d91e64645519ff4de26b27757c02021-11-23T14:21:31Z“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency10.13135/2612-5641/29042612-5641https://doaj.org/article/abaa4d91e64645519ff4de26b27757c02019-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ojs.unito.it/index.php/jamit/article/view/2904https://doaj.org/toc/2612-5641 Within the Harlem Renaissance’s politically charged climate, a discourse of anti-decadence emerged to police the boundaries of racial solidarity and to ward off the public specter of flamboyant homosexuality associated with European aestheticism. However, self-styled bohemian Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-1987) stubbornly embraced literary decadence and aestheticism, illuminating the ways that blackness and homosexuality possessed the power to deconstruct American national identity in distinct yet overlapping ways. For Nugent, blackness and homosexuality each had the power to rework fraternal relations between men that nationalist ideologies defined as inherently belligerent. Nugent’s decadence comes specifically to bear on the global-historical relationship between Italy and Africa, echoed in both the Ethiopian Crisis and the sometimes tense relations between African- and Italian-American men in the lead-up to World War II. In his largely overlooked short story, “Pope Pius the Only” (1937), Nugent responds to fascist Italy’s invasion of the sovereign African kingdom of Ethiopia with “black magic,” toppling categorical hierarchies and undoing global white nationalisms from within by putting blackness, homoeroticism, and literary decadence “to work.” Ryan TracyUniversità degli Studi di TorinoarticleRichard Bruce Nugent, Decadence, New Negro Renaissance, Ethiopianism, Italian Fascism, Queer TheoryAmericaE11-143American literaturePS1-3576ENITJAm It!, Iss 1 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN IT
topic	Richard Bruce Nugent, Decadence, New Negro Renaissance, Ethiopianism, Italian Fascism, Queer Theory America E11-143 American literature PS1-3576
spellingShingle	Richard Bruce Nugent, Decadence, New Negro Renaissance, Ethiopianism, Italian Fascism, Queer Theory America E11-143 American literature PS1-3576 Ryan Tracy “To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency
description	Within the Harlem Renaissance’s politically charged climate, a discourse of anti-decadence emerged to police the boundaries of racial solidarity and to ward off the public specter of flamboyant homosexuality associated with European aestheticism. However, self-styled bohemian Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-1987) stubbornly embraced literary decadence and aestheticism, illuminating the ways that blackness and homosexuality possessed the power to deconstruct American national identity in distinct yet overlapping ways. For Nugent, blackness and homosexuality each had the power to rework fraternal relations between men that nationalist ideologies defined as inherently belligerent. Nugent’s decadence comes specifically to bear on the global-historical relationship between Italy and Africa, echoed in both the Ethiopian Crisis and the sometimes tense relations between African- and Italian-American men in the lead-up to World War II. In his largely overlooked short story, “Pope Pius the Only” (1937), Nugent responds to fascist Italy’s invasion of the sovereign African kingdom of Ethiopia with “black magic,” toppling categorical hierarchies and undoing global white nationalisms from within by putting blackness, homoeroticism, and literary decadence “to work.”
format	article
author	Ryan Tracy
author_facet	Ryan Tracy
author_sort	Ryan Tracy
title	“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency
title_short	“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency
title_full	“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency
title_fullStr	“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency
title_full_unstemmed	“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency
title_sort	“to work black magic”: richard bruce nugent’s queer transnational insurgency
publisher	Università degli Studi di Torino
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/abaa4d91e64645519ff4de26b27757c0
work_keys_str_mv	AT ryantracy toworkblackmagicrichardbrucenugentsqueertransnationalinsurgency
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“To Work Black Magic”: Richard Bruce Nugent’s Queer Transnational Insurgency

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