Nella Larsen's Quicksand and the Impasses of Progressive Art

abstract: This paper argues that Nella Larsen's 1928 novel, Quicksand , represents art as incapable of playing a meaningful role in social change. While Larsen affirms that aesthetic forms, practices, and judgements contribute to the making of subjectivity, social practice, desire, and community, she depicts them as overdetermined by the repressive logics of a world formed by transatlantic slavery. Participating in conversations about art's political dimension that were prevalent during the Harlem Renaissance and remain part of the current critical discourse, Quicksand pessimistically suggests that while art can represent the world as it exists, it cannot imagine or build towards an alternative.