Undervalued Black particularism: an untenable Southern Black cosmopolitanism in the novels of Carson McCullers

This essay explores the discourse of Southern Black cosmopolitanism in the novels of Carson McCullers. Drawing upon Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo’s concept of Black cosmopolitanism and Nico Slate’s analysis of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s colored cosmopolitanism, this essay posits that Black cosmopolitanism arises from the tension between a universalism that transcends race and a particularism that embraces Black specificity. As an instantiation of Black cosmopolitanism, Southern Black cosmopolitanism reflects the interplay between anti-racial universalism and racial particularism within the context of the South’s legacy of slavery, segregation, and civil rights activism. Through a close reading of McCullers’s novels, this essay examines how characters like Doctor Copeland and Sherman Pew exemplify the struggle for a universalistic humanism while simultaneously neglecting their Black particularism. Their undervaluing of Black particularity, this essay contends, renders their Southern Black cosmopolitanism rootless, unsustainable, and ultimately untenable. By adopting Southern Black cosmopolitanism as a critical lens to revisit McCullers’s Black narratives, this study reveals the author’s evolving racial consciousness and underscores the ongoing relevance of her works to contemporary discussions of race and identity in American literature.