| Summary: | This article examines Langston Hughes's engagement with the mid-twentieth-century emergence of fascism. While paying special attention to his framing of fascism as a logical continuation of a deep history of enslavement and colonization, this article argues that Hughes primarily advances an elastic definition of the term, one that points to the existence of imbalanced relations of power in the modern world. According to Hughes, fascism is omnipresent, finding expression in everything from Benito Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia to post-war symbolic production. In addition to analysing Hughes's examination of the depth of the fascist menace, which threatens to level every aspect of human culture, this article also attends to the practical possibilities that he finds in his moment of social crisis: according to Hughes, by unleashing its violence at a global level, fascism produces new social constellations that transgress the conventional lines of race, nation, geography, and history. Thus, resistance to fascism prepares the ground for collective emancipation. The article concludes by considering the ongoing cultural relevance of this body of writing in a world on the rightward swing: Hughes offers a set of insights and strategies of dissent at a moment when resistance to fascism remains necessary.
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