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Locke, Alain Leroy

5 articles on Locke, Alain Leroy

  • Locke, Alainimage available

    Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century

    Word Count: 2496      Includes:  Bibliography

    (b. 13 September 1886; d. 9 June 1954), cultural critic, philosopher, and author of the influential texts Negro Art: Past and Present (1936) and The Negro in Art (1940). Born in Philadelphia, Alain Leroy Locke was the only child of Pliny Ishmael and Mary Hawkins Locke. He attended Central High School and the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy before enrolling at Harvard College in 1904 as a philosophy major, where he studied with some of the country's most celebrated philosophers including Josiah Royce, George Santayana, Hugo Munsterberg, and William James. An excellent student, Locke was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and named the first black Rhodes Scholar in 1907. From 1907 to 1910, he studied at Hertford College, Oxford University, and for the 1910–1911academic year he studied the work ofFranz ...
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  • Locke, Alain Leroyimage available

    Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

    Word Count: 1551     

    1885–1954
    African American philosopher, intellectual, and educator; editor of The New Negro, the anthology credited with defining the Harlem Renaissance. In his introduction to Alain Locke: Reflections on a Modern Renaissance Man, Russell J. Linnemannpoints out that although Alain Locke was trained as a philosopher at Harvard, Oxford, and Berlin Universities, “anthropology, art, music, literature, education, political theory, sociology, and African studies represent only a few of his wide range of intellectual pursuits.” Linnemann goes on to hypothesize that this extraordinary breadth of intellectual activity is “the primary reason why a biography of him has not yet been written … few if any potential biographers who might wish to examine the scope of his thought, assess his often provocative contributions, and place them within the context of the appropriate disciplines, would have the intellectual breadth or depth to fulfill the task properly.” The title ...
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  • Locke, Alain Leroyimage available

    Source: African American National Biography

    Word Count: 2030      Includes:  Further Reading

    (13 Sept. 1885–9 June 1954), philosopher and literary critic, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Pliny Ishmael Locke, a lawyer, and Mary Hawkins, a teacher and member of the Felix Adler Ethical Society. Locke graduated from Central High School and the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy in Philadelphia in 1904. That same year he published his first editorial, “Moral Training in Elementary Schools,” in the Teacher, and entered undergraduate school at Harvard University. He studied at Harvard under such scholars as Josiah Royce, George H. Palmer, Ralph B. Perry, and Hugo Münsterberg before graduating in 1907 and becoming the first African American Rhodes scholar, at Hertford College, Oxford. While in Europe, he also attended lectures at the University of Berlin (1910–1911) andFranz ...
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  • Locke, Alain Leroy

    Source: Oxford Companion to Black British History

    Word Count: 681     

    ( 1886 – 1954 ). One of the most influential figures in promoting the intellectual and artistic life of the Black diaspora during the first half of the 20th century. He was especially interested in the visual arts but also encouraged black dramatists.

    Locke was born in Philadelphia, graduated from Harvard University in 1907 , and then attended Oxford University from 1907 to 1910 as the first black Rhodes Scholar. He then did advanced work in philosophy in Berlin before returning to the United States. He joined Howard University in 1912 , only leaving to do his doctorate at Harvard. He then stayed at Howard until his retirement in ...
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  • Locke, Alain

    Source: The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature

    Word Count: 980     

    (1885–1954), critic, educator, philosopher, and mentor of the Harlem Renaissance. Alain Locke's role as a general factotum of the Harlem Renaissance has tended to overshadow the full dimensions of an active and productive life. John Edgar Tidwell and John Wright list more than three hundred items spanning the period from 1904 to 1953 in “Alain Locke: A Comprehensive Bibliography of His Published Writings” (Callaloo, Feb.–Oct., 1981). Born in (or near) Philadelphia to parents who were school-teachers, Locke came to maturity in the self-conscious genteel ambiance of Philadelphia's black elite. After completing secondary and normal school studies in Philadelphia, he went to Harvard College, where he majored in philosophy. An appointment as a Rhodes scholar in 1907followed his undergraduate Harvard experience ...
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