MISCEGENATION in literature, MYSTICISM in literature, COGNITION in literature, and RACISM in literature

Examines how the language of evolutionary science and Gurdjieffian mysticism in “The Blue Meridian,” by Jean Toomer fuse to create a language of cognition. Ways in which Toomer’s early training and reading in the biological sciences remained influential throughout his writing career; Toomer’s concept of the “blue” race; Impact of the pervasiveness of racialist assumptions drawn from evolutionary biology in America; Toomer’s use of Darwinian evolutionary logic as the basis for his modernism.