Norman Mailer, "The White Negro," and New Conceptions of the Self in Postwar America

Authors

  • Alan Petigny University of Florida Author

Keywords:

"The White Negro", Postwar American culture, identity and the self, race and representation, sexual liberalization, Cold War America, cultural history

Abstract

Mailer’s concern about the lack of individuality in American society was not a substantiation of his claims but of the reverse. In an ironic way, the resonance of “The White Negro” during the late 1950s was further evidence of an ascendant spirit during the postwar era—one which was more secular, more expressive, and, in the aggregate, less conformist than anything that had come before.

Author Biography

  • Alan Petigny, University of Florida

    Alan Petigny is an award-winning former reporter for a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate in Florida. He received his PhD in history from Brown University in 2003. His works have appeared in The Journal of Social History, Reviews in American History, American Heritage, The Canadian Review of American Studies (forthcoming), and The Journal of America Culture (forthcoming). Petigny has also held fellowships at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion, and Rutgers University’s Institute for Health. Currently, Petigny is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Florida, where he is completing a manuscript for Cambridge University Press entitled “The Permissive Society, 1941–1965.”

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Published

2026-01-25

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2007): Inaugural Issue

Section

Articles