Les études consacrées à Charles Johnson soulignent la distance entre sa vision originale et le Black Arts Movement et le Black Aesthetic, mouvements politiquement engagés. Cependant, ses romans et nouvelles, indéniablement philosophiques, traduisent une réflexion qui interroge les fondements de la politique. Oxherding Tale et Middle Passage montrent des catastrophes politiques (i. e. la plantation nommée Leviathan ou le négrier appelé Republic) alors que les héros de ces romans explorent différentes esthétiques. Le désastre politique provient donc d’une incapacité esthétique. Inversement, les voyages métaphysiques des personnages principaux aboutissent à de nouvelles façons de percevoir le monde et les autres au travers d’une intersubjectivité esthétique. La comparaison des théories de Schiller et d’Adorno sur l’art et la politique avec la vision bouddhiste de l’auteur sur l’art et ses effets sur le monde, permet de faire émerger de l’ensemble de l’oeuvre de Charles Johnson sa quête esthétique et sa philosophie politique qui définissent l’action comme une co-création. En conclusion, si l’oeuvre de Charles Johnson, héritier de la fiction morale de John Gardner, est le lieu d’une libération esthétique et spirituelle, elle est aussi une contribution à la construction de ce qu’Arendt appelait le monde, et sa définition de l’art correspond à l’enracinement de Simone Weil. / Those who have commented on Charles Johnson’s fiction often find a distance between his work and Black Aesthetic or the Black Arts Movement, and indeed his fiction is not committed to any racial politics. Nevertheless, it does reflect on the bases of politics and bring them into question. Since Oxherding Tale and Middle Passage have political catastrophes as backgrounds (i.e. Flo Hatfield’s Leviathan or Falcon’s Republic) on which the heroes explore different aesthetic systems, it can be argued that political failure stems from aesthetic impairment. Conversely, as the metaphysical journeys of Charles Johnson’s characters end in new ways of perceiving the world, the relationship between self and other is re-evaluated in aesthetic intersubjectivity. Moreover, an examination of Schiller’s and Adorno’s ideas regarding the link between art and politics serves as a comparison with the novelist’s Buddhist understanding of art and its effect upon the world. Consequently, an analysis of the subtext highlights Johnson's aesthetic quest and its relation to a philosophical inquiry into politics. Thus, political action is defined as a co-creative work. In conclusion, while for Charles Johnson fiction is the space for aesthetic and spiritual liberation, it also starts an ethical rebuilding of what Hannah Arendt called the world, and Johnson's definition of art is an answer to what Simone Weil termed as the need for root.

Belly Laughs: Body Humor in Contemporary American Literature and Film Scholars are more than happy to laugh at but seem somewhat reluctant to discuss body humor, which is perhaps the most neglected form of comedy in recent criticism. In this dissertation, I examine the ways in which contemporary American writers and filmmakers use body humor in their works, not only in moments of so-called "comic relief" but also as a valid way of exploring many of the same issues that postmodern artists typically interrogate in their more somber moments. The writers discussed in this project-Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Charles Johnson, and Woody Allen-were chosen for the divergent ways in which they present the body's comic predicament in psychological, metaphysical, and historical situations. The introduction explains the diverse traditions that these artists draw upon and considers how various theoretical approaches can affect our understanding of body humor. The first chapter examines Jewish-American novelist Philip Roth's use of absurd and grotesque body imagery as manifestations of his characters' moral dilemmas. The second chapter looks at how slapstick comedy informs a worldview dominated by paranioa and chaos in Thomas Pynchon's novels. Chapter Three looks at Woody Allen's early films, in which he parodies and revises the slapstick cinematic tradition of artists like Charlie Chaplin and The Marx Brothers. Chapter Four considers African-American writer and cartoonist Charles Johnson's depiction of the ways in which the body's desires and pitfalls complicate the quest for spiritual enlightenment.

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