Part I. Geographical, Institutional, and Interpersonal Contexts: 1. Oklahoma City and 'the territory' Tracy Floreani; 2. Ghosts of Tuskegee Caroline Gebhard; 3. Morteza drexel sprague Matthew McKnight; 4. New York City, 1936-1946 Sara Rutkowski; 5. The U.S. merchant marine Paul Devlin; 6. Fanny Ellison Colleen Eils; 7. Rome, 1955-1957 Sara Marzioli; 8. Postwar New York Andrew Davenport; 9. Albert Murray after 1962 Paul Devlin; Part II. Historical, Political, and Cultural Contexts: 10. Visualizing Black identity in Ellison's fiction Lena Hill; 11. Alternating currents: Electricity, humanism, and resistance Jennifer L. Lieberman; 12. Sounds and signs of Black womanhood Meina Yates-Richard; 13. Masculinity E. Al-Tariq Moore; 14. Aesthetics of democracy Sterling Lecater Bland, Jr; 15. Black power and Black arts Matthew Calihman; 16. Wrestling with the far right: Ellison's representations of fascism Kevin Moore; 17. Southwestern swing Steven Lewis; 18. The self-fashioned American blues identity Kimberly Mack; 19. Ellison's durational view of bebop Michael Germana; Part III. Literary and Critical Contexts: 20. The Harlem renaissance Michael Borshuk; 21. Ellison's early writings Barbara Foley; 22. The Wright school Stephan Kuhl; 23. Literary modernism Tessa Roynon; 24. Beyond raglan's Hero: Ellison's ritualist influences Bryan Crable; 25. Sociology Scott Selisker; 26. The soapbox speech in Ellison's fiction Granville Ganter; 27. Postwar literary aesthetics Jesse McCarthy; 28. Ellison as correspondent Marc C. Conner; Part IV. Reception and Reputation: 29. Critical reputation, 1994-2020 Paul Devlin and Robert Butler; 30. Reading invisible man by design Kinohi Nishikawa; 31. Reception of the Hickman novel Benji de la Piedra; 32. Reception of the essay collections Matthew Lambert; 33. Reception in the USSR and former USSR Olga Panova; 34. Biographies of Ellison Timothy Parrish; 35. Ellison and digital humanities J. D. Porter.

This book sums up longstanding conversations with definitive chapters, and offers ground-breaking essays on a various topics not yet covered.