This book looks beyond the familiar story of the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Movement. Discussing the ephemeral qualities of periodicals, clothes, and decor alongside more concrete historical and literary analyses, the volume investigates concepts, events, and figures that have been obscured by the customary narratives of the era.

Introduction: Expecting more: African American literature in transition, 1920-30 Miriam Thaggert and Rachel Farebrother; Part I. Habitus, Sound, Fashion: 1. New Negro literary décor: Competing tastes in 1920s Cherene Sherrard-Johnson; 2. The new Negro movement's recording imaginary Sonnet Retman; 3. Sartorial self-fashioning in the Harlem renaissance Kimberly Lamm; Part II. Space: Chronicles of Harlem and Beyond: 4. Going Dutch: From renaissance Haarlem to the Harlem renaissance Michael Soto; 5. The unmaking of the new Mecca Shannon King; 6. Subversions of Boasian objectivity in Zora Neale Hurston's great migration fiction and ethnography M. Genevieve West; 7. W. E. B. Du Bois and the fluid subject: Dark princess and the splendid transnational in the Harlem renaissance Inés Valdez; Part III. 'Uplift' Renewed: Religion, Protest and Education: 8. 'The sinful babel of the airshaft': Rudolph fisher's fiction and religion, urban space and modernity in the Harlem renaissance Rachel Farebrother; 9. Marcus Garvey: Popular culture and black liberation Heather D. Russell; 10. Progression or reversion of the black race?: Historically black colleges in Nella Larsen's Quicks and Angela Watkins; Part IV. Serial Reading: Magazines and Periodical Culture: 11. The midnight motion picture company goes to Europe: The Harlem renaissance and global white supremacy Adam McKible; 12. African American magazine modernism John K. Young.