DescriptionMy dissertation is both a study of black radicalism and implicit bias in twentieth century African American literature, as well as a gesture towards new ways of studying and teaching black radicalism and African American literature in the academy at large. Historically, African American literature has been unduly cast as being inextricably bound with linear historical periods of racial struggle and progress in America. Using what I define as a black radical criticism, I close-read the work of black experimental writers across eight decades, arguing for the opening of inquiry (where finite determinations have previously been set in place) across traditional boundaries of literary periodization - outside of time - seeking a study of the trajectory of black radical expression across socio-historical moments (as opposed to continuing to assess African American authorial legacies based on their previous placements within historical literary movements). Baraka serves as a central figure of inquiry in this project because of his historical positioning between three large literary movements – New Negro, Black Arts, and Black Feminism. Because Baraka has such a large presence inside and outside of the academy, as well as a wealth of documented writing and self-revision, he functions as an easily accessible site of deconstructable radicalism - one providing a clear detailing of difference in the ways in which his legacy has been crafted versus the ways in which Baraka himself has worked to craft. Placing Baraka’s work in conversation with nineteenth and twentieth century theorists, the work of Langston Hughes, Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters, and Renee Gladman’s The Activist, I discuss racism and bias, historical memory, modes of self-construction and the ways each are represented and interrogated by these authors. I use those interrogations to further explore the existence of implicit bias within the construction of African American literature canons and the affect those biases have on the teaching, and cultural remembrance, of African American authors.