“THE AUTODIDACT PROJECT”
by Ralph Dumain

RICHARD WRIGHT
STUDY GUIDE

Romare Bearden
The Street (Composition for Richard Wright), c. 1977
Gift of Werner H. and Sarah-Ann Kramarsky and Collectors Committee Fund
© Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
2001.58.1
Collection of National Gallery of Art

ON THIS SITE:

Richard Wright Defines The Outsider

Richard Wright’s Outsider, Negroes & Flying Saucers

Richard Wright's The Outsider (1953): Selected Quotes

Richard Wright: Letter to Mike Gold, May 1940 (Excerpt): On Bigger & Hitler

Richard Wright on Albert Camus’ The Stranger

“Negreto” (excerpt from Black Boy in Esperanto translation)

Richard Wright's Pagan Spain

Richard Wright's White Man, Listen!

Simone de Beauvoir on literature, metaphysics, the American novel, & Richard Wright

Notes on Bruce Kuklick’s Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine by Ralph Dumain

“The Mind and Thought of the Negro of the United States as Revealed in Imaginative Literature, 1876-1940” by William T. Fontaine

“The Dilemma of the Negro Novelist in the United States” (1948) [Excerpts] by Chester Himes

Lloyd L. Brown Talks to Mary Helen Washington: Writing the Collective Narrative (Route One Interview)

"Richard Wright: In a Class by Himself" [review of Richard Wright: The Life and Times by Hazel Rowley]

Book Review (Draft of above): Richard Wright: The Life and Times by Hazel Rowley

Cornel West's Evasion of Philosophy, Or, Richard Wright's Revenge by R. Dumain

“On the Significance of The Signifying Monkey by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” by R. Dumain

AfroBS Dropping (review of Afrofuturism Rising) by R. Dumain

2 Haiku for Richard Wright by R. Dumain

August Wilson on Jorge Luis Borges

Lest We Forget—The Hidden History of the African-American Autodidact:
A Belated Tribute to Black History Month

Individual Identity, Historical Meaning, and the Unknown Autodidact

Richard Wright's "The Man Who Lived Underground": Notes for Discussion

Richard Wright's "The Man Who Lived Underground": Annotated Select Bibliography

Ash of Stars: One half of a dialogue on Samuel R. Delany by R. Dumain

Adorno for Autodidacts (podcast: notes & references) by R. Dumain

Dialectic and Dystopia: A Century Before and After the Russian Revolution Through Literature (podcast transcript) by R. Dumain

Dostoevsky’s Underground, Ideology, Reception: A Very Select Bibliography

Flying Saucers & Afrofuturism — Counternarratives Study Guide

Black Studies, Music, America vs Europe—Study Guide

African American / Black Autodidacticism, Education, Intellectual Life

American Philosophy Study Guide

EXTERNAL LINKS:

by R. Dumain

Richard Wright @ Reason & Society

general

The Richard Wright Connection (The C.L.R. James Institute)

The Richard Wright Connection: Quotations (a must-see)

Richard Wright - Wikisource (with Dumain influence)

Slavery & Freedom Literature II: Modern (Richard Wright links) [defunct site]

Richard Wright--Richard Hancuff's Page [defunct site]

Richard Wright (1908-1960): Modern American Poetry [almost empty site]

specific

“Editors Refused to Publish Richard Wright's Most Important Novel—Until Now” by Leigh Haber, Oprah Daily, March 25, 2021

“The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright

Richard Wright classroom guide (to “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”)

Granda nigra bona viro [“Big Black Good Man”] (1957) de Richard Wright (Esperanto translation)

“Black Boys and Native Sons” by Irving Howe (Dissent, Autumn 1963, pp. 353-68)

The Linguistic Turn, Materialism and 'Race': Toward an 'Aesthetics of Crisis' by Robert Young (Alethia 2.1, 1999) [dead link]

Reading Guide on Native Son from HarperCollins Publishers

Richard Wright: Black Boy (1 of 5)

2. Richard Wright, Black Boy: Lecture 2 of Yale course "The American Novel Since 1945" (ENGL 291) by Amy Hungerford, Spring 2008 (YouTube)

“Richard Wright and the Persistence of Racism” by Kenneth Rexroth (The Urbanite, March 1961)

Richard Wright Centennial (1908 / 2008)
[All links defunct]

Reading Richard Wright on the Eve of His 100th Birthday
Monthly Discussion Sessions, January Through December 2007 (Jerry Ward)

The American University of Paris | International Richard Wright Centennial Conference

“Richard Wright at 100” Special Session of South Central Modern Language Association Convention, November 6-8, San Antonio, Texas

"Richard Wright at 100" - International Conference - Departamento de Letras da Universidade da Beira Interior, Portugal - 28-29 November 2008.
Submit 250-word abstracts to Prof. Paula Elyseu Mesquita by 1 July 2008.

Celebrating 100 Years of Richard Wright at the American University of Paris, 19-21 June 2008, documented by Kaleem Ashraf

A Father's Son: Wright fiction published 2008

Richard Wright's Unfinished Work Hits the Stands (NPR) 2008

'Father's Law' a Reflection of Wright's Masterpieces (NPR) Jan. 7, 2008

Campbell, James. "Richard Wright: Black First," The Times Literary Supplement, June 11, 2008. [dead link]