Harlem loomed large in the imagination of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, one of the twentieth century's most significant composers and an important theorist of the condition of being black and American. This article provides insights into Ellington's social thought by foregrounding his evocations of Harlem and his efforts to interpolate that neighborhood into the physical, cultural, and imaginative spaces of US national life. In doing so, it also situates Ellington's ideas in relation to the competing intellectual currents of the Harlem Renaissance movement that had inspired his project of racial vindication. More broadly, the article argues that understanding of the history of African American ideas of race and nation benefits from analysis of discursive place-making and the spatial practices of artistic and intellectual work. Attending to space and place recuperates the complexity and multiplicity of such ideas, which are often concealed by abstracted discussion of concepts such as “integration.”

哈莱姆区在爱德华·肯尼迪“公爵”艾灵顿的想象中浮现，他是 20 世纪最重要的作曲家之一，也是黑人和美国人状况的重要理论家。本文通过突出他对哈莱​​姆区的唤起以及他将这个社区插入美国国民生活的物质、文化和想象空间的努力，提供了对艾灵顿社会思想的见解。在这样做的过程中，它还将艾灵顿的思想与激发了他的种族辩护项目的哈莱姆文艺复兴运动的竞争知识潮流联系起来。更广泛地说，这篇文章认为，对非裔美国人种族和民族观念的历史的理解得益于对话语场所营造以及艺术和智力工作的空间实践的分析。