Psychology Comes to Harlem

Download or read book Psychology Comes to Harlem written by Jay Garcia and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2012-05-14 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Departing from the largely accepted existence of a "Negro Problem," Wright and such literary luminaries as Ralph Ellison, Lillian Smith, and James Baldwin described and challenged a racist social order whose psychological undercurrents implicated all Americans and had yet to be adequately studied. Motivated by the elastic possibilities of clinical and academic inquiry, writers and critics undertook a rethinking of "race" and assessed the value of psychotherapy and psychological theory as antiracist strategies. Garcia examines how this new criticism brought together black and white writers and became a common idiom through fiction and nonfiction that attracted wide readerships.