Disengaged or disingenuous? Ascetic and bourgeois self-surveillance in African American literature, exemplified on Charles Johnson’s “Alethia”

Abstract

The paper traces the history of troubled negotiations between ideological and non-ideological writing in African American literature, with a special focus on the work of the philosophical novelist Charles Richard Johnson, particularly his early short story “Alethia”.

Keywords

• Disengaged
• disingenuous?
• Ascetic
• bourgeois
• self-surveillance
• African
• American
• literature
• Charles
• Johnson’s
• “Alethia”