"Tropical Aesthetics of Black Modernism considers how Caribbean and American artists of the early twentieth century are responding to the colonial and hegemonic regimes through visual and performative tropicalist representation. By proposing an alternative understanding of the tropics, this book demonstrates how Aaron Douglas, Wifredo Lam, Josephine Baker, Maya Angelou, and some masqueraders and designers of Trinidad Carnival effectively contributed to the development of Black modernity, and even Black sonic modernity. Tropical Aesthetics of Black Modernism aspires to broaden the epistemological reaches of the discipline of art history by acknowledging the interdisciplinarity inherent in the study of creative production of any kind"--