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African, American

African, American

David Peterson del Mar

(2017)

Abstract

Africa has long gripped the American imagination. From the Edenic wilderness of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan novels to the ‘black Zion’ of Garvey’s Back-to-Africa movement, all manner of Americans - whether white or black, male or female - have come to see Africa as an idealized stage on which they can fashion new, more authentic selves. In this remarkable, panoramic work, David Peterson del Mar explores the ways in which American fantasies of Africa have evolved over time, as well as the role of Africans themselves in subverting American attitudes to their continent.

Spanning seven decades, from the post-war period to the present day, and encompassing sources ranging from literature, film and music to accounts by missionaries, aid workers and travel writers, African, American is a fascinating deconstruction of ‘Africa’ as it exists in the American mindset.



‘Offers an intimate view of the intertwined relationship between Americans and Africans. Through a comprehensive yet sensitive analytical reading of fiction, autobiography and film, Del Mar shows just how much Africa has and continues to shape what it means to be American.’
Kathryn Mathers, Duke University

‘Demonstrates how Americans projected their own gender, class, and racial psychoses into their experiences and renderings of the African Continent. Del Mar seeks a critical approach not to what Africa is, but to how Americans have perceived it. With this comprehensive source, we might begin to understand the difference.’
Leslie James, University of Birmingham


David Peterson del Mar is an associate professor of history at Portland State University, and the founding president of Yo Ghana!, a charity devoted to promoting friendship and understanding between students in Ghana and the Pacific Northwest.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover Cover
Half Title i
Title Page iii
Copyright iv
Contents ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface: ‘Africa in My Head’ 1
1. ‘Brightest Africa’ in the Early Twentieth Century 13
African Visions: Edgar Rice Burroughs and Marcus Garvey 15
Manly White Men in Africa 22
White Women and Black Africans 34
White Missionaries in Africa 44
Black Americans Discover Africa 54
2. Post-War America and the ‘New Africa’ 67
The Rise and Fall of White America’s African Golden Age 69
White Men’s Self-Actualization in Changing Africa 85
Black Americans and the New Black Africa 98
Four White Women and the Mingling of Selves 116
3. From Political to Personal: White and Black America Confront a Transformed Continent 131
Return of the Black African Savage in the White American Mind 134
Two White Men and a Woman in the New Africa 149
Not Quite Home: Black Americans and Africa 161
The Rise and Fall of the Peace Corps 174
4. Gendered American Quests in ‘Timeless Africa’ 185
Extreme Africa 188
Self-Actualized White Men in Bloddy Africa 199
White Selves Deconstructed 209
Gendered Afrocenterisms 229
5. Africa Cosmopolitan in the New Millennium 249
The Persistence of White Quests 252
Travel and Africans 260
Missionaries and Other Do-Gooders 269
Black Americans and Africans 284
Cosmopolitanism 295
Conclusion: The in Between 311
Notes 317
Primary Sources: Books 356
Primary Sources: Films 366
Major Secondary Sources 369
Index 377
About the Author 386