Black love and the Harlem Renaissance: The politics of intimacy in the novels of Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Zora Neale Hurston

The Harlem Renaissance, also known at the Negro Renaissance and the New Negro Movement, was a revolution that transformed politics, culture, and society—first in Harlem, and then in America for persons of African descent. It also changed the world\u27s perceptions of African America, and, most important, profoundly altered the way that African Americans perceived themselves. Unfortunately, decades after the movement, Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Zora Neale Hurston continue to be neglected by contemporary scholarship for many of the same reasons that they were marginalized in their own day. Recent scholarship has failed to consider a fresh approach to the thematic concerns of these women. My project will be a part of a reevaluation process as I illustrate how their works actually use class as a means of illuminating the inequity of power in relationships between (African American) men and (African American) women. As a result, they presented acceptable and unacceptable models of black love. My dissertation will attempt to contribute to an area of scholarship that is still growing; focus on some of the works of these writers that have yet to receive much attention; and offer another paradigm by which to consider the broader scope of thematic concerns that these authors effectively address. To this end, my project examines each author in separate chapters that concentrate on their respective works. As a result of the work of black literary archaeologists, the literati have been reminded that the Harlem Renaissance was not just a male phenomenon. Women like Larsen, Fauset, and Hurston were among the most prolific writers of the period. These three writers changed the face, gender, and therefore, voice of African-American literature and ensured that black women would never be silenced in literature or society again. This dissertation underscores the stories of Larsen, Fauset, and Hurston as they illuminate the tensions between black men and women who struggle to define self, to love themselves, and to value the self as they engage in the “politics of intimacy.”