Post-black is New Black: Aesthetic Postmodernity in African American Literature

Name of Author : Dr. Prantik Banerjee, Vikas H. Meshram

Abstract: This paper investigates the aesthetic changes in African American literature since past fifty years. It highlights the turning points in the African American aesthetics and discusses the epoch-defining changes perceived in the post-modern African American writers. It starts with the discussion of the paradigm shift in black literature during and after 1970s when a new and un-treditional trend of writing came in vogue which came to be called as New Black Aesthetics, and then it endeavors to highlight the Postness that was ushered in by the emergence of such a great Afro-American leader like Barak Obama on the political scene of America. The term, Post-blackness, that came to be used for the period after the elections of Obama, will be defined and explained in relation with the African American literature and similarities will be sought between the two terms, namely the New Black Aesthetics and Postblack Aesthetics, to establish the conclusion drawn by several scholars that these terms used for the paradigmatic shift in black aesthetics are merely synonymous without any fundamental differences as such.

Keywords : Generational Shift, New Black Aesthetics, Distinguishing Features of NBA, Postblack Literature, Similarities and Differences

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