Chapter 25 - Sociology

Summary

A rich body of recent scholarship has commented on the depth of Ellison’s engagements with major developments in sociology and psychology, including direct engagements with the work of Robert Park, John Dollard, Gunnar Myrdal, and the Lafargue Clinic in Harlem. Ellison showed a sustained interest and concern with the new prominence of sociology and psychology in mid-century policy decisions in the U.S. Accordingly, his fiction and chapters consistently engaged with these disciplines’ claims to knowledge of African American culture as compared with other ways of knowing, such as naturalist fiction, Marxist analysis, music, and folklore.