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A literary criticism is presented on essays by the 20th century African American author Ralph Ellison, including "Harlem Is Nowhere," "An Extravagance of Laughter” and “New York, 1936.” Particular focus is given to the geography within Ellison's depiction of the 20th century African American migration known as the Great Migration from the Southern States to the Northern States, including to New York City, New York. Ellison's perspective on African American laughter is discussed.

The cover story provides a literary criticism of the book "Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem," by Claude McKay. The novel's depiction of the African Americans of Harlem, New York City's sentiment towards Ethiopia following Italy's 1935 invasion of the country is discussed. McKay's reliance on historical archives for his book "Amiable With Big Teeth" is also discussed. An overview of the novel's portrayal of transnational themes is provided.

This article investigates the exhibit of the Third International Congress of Eugenics, which was organized by Harry Hamilton Laughlin and showcased at the American Museum of Natural History in 1932. It argues that the exhibit's displays shaped popular eugenic ideology by connecting particular eugenic principles to specific visual representations that were experienced in relation to binaries such as the artistically traditional and the modern, the classical and the grotesque, and the scientific and the spectacle (or the "freak" and the medical specimen). These dichotomies were, in turn, experienced within the context of the exhibit's overall theme of eugenics as anchored in the past and the future and concern over the differential birthrate. The exhibit to the Third Congress provides insight into growing tensions within the eugenics movement of the 1930s, the importance of positive eugenics, the aesthetics of heredity, and how the "scientific truths" of a given era are publicized and perpetuated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]