CENTRE AND THE MARGIN: INVESTIGATING THE POLITICS OF POWER IN LITTLE MAGAZINES OF THE 20TH CENTURY AMERICA

During the 1920s, popularly known as the period of Harlem Renaissance, there was a rift inthe society which impacted the entire social fabric poignantly the sufferings of the AfroAmericans in terms of racism, lynching, segregation problematizing the power structures andthe societal ideology. Power, from an ideological point of view, can be described as aninstrument of controlling the society, influencing people’s lives in myriad ways andachieving the intended targets as set by the centre. Power and politics can be viewedconjointly when we critically explore the Little Magazines brought out by the ones in thecentre of the power structure and the other- in the periphery. Little Magazines, avant-gardeand non-commercial in nature, served as cultural intermediaries, a medium of expression anda literary space mediating between the political, social and literary dimensions. Thepublication of the Little Magazines periodically by the people in power in the 20th centuryAmerica, that is, the Whites reflected their domination in the printing industry; LittleMagazines published by the Afro-Americans were mostly short-lived for paucity of support,funding and response. These little magazines brought to the surface issues likemarginalization, subjugation, alienation, exploitation issues while, those published by thepower centre celebrated the literary and artistic writings of the individuals and focused oncreating “an alternative form of cultural capital in relation to mainstream magazines”, alsoaiming at expanding nationally and internationally.The paper attempts to closely look at the theorists Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak, HomiBhabha, Judith Butler associated with the concept of class and race. This paper addresses theimpact of the dynamics of power and its operation on the Afro-Americans in relation toidentity and its representation.