Download or read book African Settings in Contemporary American Novels written by Dave Kuhne and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1999-05-30 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa has long captured the Western imagination as a land shrouded in danger and mystery. British and American novels written before World War II established popular conventions and stereotypes about Africa that have been increasingly challenged by contemporary American novels set in Africa. Kuhne's book overviews the ways in which Africa has been employed as a powerful setting for American novels written since World War II. Kuhne argues that contemporary American novels with African settings are largely didactic, that these novels convey specific lessons about Africa and Africans, and that they compare African and American cultures in order to evaluate and critique the two worlds. The book begins by summarizing the conventions and themes Westerners have traditionally associated with Africa and by detailing how British and American authors from Aphra Behn to Ernest Hemingway depicted Africa before World War II. It then looks at contemporary American novels set in invented African nations, novels that typically suggest that the problems that trouble actual African nations are the result of colonialism. A separate chapter then examines the African novels of African Americans, which generally aim to correct the historical record, refute stereotypes, and detail the horrors of the slave trade. The volume also looks at genre fiction set in Africa, while a final chapter discusses postcolonial novels with African settings.
Download or read book A Continent of Words written by Dave Kuhne and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Passing and the Rise of the African American Novel written by Maria Giulia Fabi and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Passing and the Rise of the African American Novel restores to its rightful place a body of American literature that has long been overlooked, dismissed, or misjudged. This insightful reconsideration of nineteenth-century African-American fiction uncovers the literary artistry and ideological complexity of a body of work that laid the foundation for the Harlem Renaissance and changed the course of American letters. Focusing on the trope of passing -- black characters lightskinned enough to pass for white -- M. Giulia Fabi shows how early African-American authors such as William Wells Brown, Frank J. Webb, Charles W. Chesnutt, Sutton E. Griggs, James Weldon Johnson, Frances E. W. Harper, and Edward A. Johnson transformed traditional representations of blackness and moved beyond the tragic mulatto motif. Celebrating a distinctive, African-American history, culture, and worldview, these authors used passing to challenge the myths of racial purity and the color line. Fabi examines how early black writers adapted existing literary forms, including the sentimental romance, the domestic novel, and the utopian novel, to express their convictions and concerns about slavery, segregation, and racism. She also gives a historical overview of the canon-making enterprises of African-American critics from the 1850s to the 1990s and considers how their concerns about crafting a particular image for African-American literature affected their perceptions of nineteenth-century black fiction.
Download or read book The Afro American Novel and Its Tradition written by Bernard W. Bell and published by Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study is an addition to the growing body of scholarly analysis examining the Afro-American contribution. It is based on the premise that in the last 25 years the traditional canon of American literature excluded important minority authors. Proceeding chronologically from William Wells Brown's Clotel (1853), to experimental novels of the 1980s, Bell comments on more than 150 works, with close readings of 41 novelists. His remarks are framed by an inquiry into the distinctive elements of Afro-American fiction. ISBN 0-87023-568-0 : $25.00.
Download or read book Travel and Dislocation in Contemporary American Fiction written by Aliki Varvogli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a critical study and analysis of American fiction at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It focuses on novels that ‘go outward’ literally and metaphorically, and it concentrates on narratives that take place mainly away from the US’s geographical borders. Varvogli draws on current theories of travel globalization and post-national studies, and proposes a dynamic model that will enable scholars to approach contemporary American fiction and assess recent changes and continuities. Concentrating on work by Philip Caputo, Dave Eggers, Norman Rush and Russell Banks, the book proposes that American literature’s engagement with Africa has shifted and needs to be approached using new methodologies. Novels by Amy Tan, Garrison Keillor, Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers are examined in the context of travel and globalization, and works by Chang-rae Lee, Ethan Canin, Dinaw Mengestu and Jhumpa Lahiri are used as examples of the changing face of the American immigrant novel, and the changing meaning of national belonging.
Download or read book Contemporary African American Literature written by Lovalerie King and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-28 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays exploring contemporary black fiction and examining important issues in current African American literary studies. In this volume, Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner have compiled a collection of essays that offer access to some of the most innovative contemporary black fiction while addressing important issues in current African American literary studies. Distinguished scholars Houston Baker, Trudier Harris, Darryl Dickson-Carr, and Maryemma Graham join writers and younger scholars to explore the work of Toni Morrison, Edward P. Jones, Trey Ellis, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, Kyle Baker, Danzy Senna, Nikki Turner, and many others. The collection is bracketed by a foreword by novelist and graphic artist Mat Johnson, one of the most exciting and innovative contemporary African American writers, and an afterword by Alice Randall, author of the controversial parody The Wind Done Gone. Together, King and Moody-Turner make the case that diversity, innovation, and canon expansion are essential to maintaining the vitality of African American literary studies. “A compelling collection of essays on the ongoing relevance of African American literature to our collective understanding of American history, society, and culture. Featuring a wide array of writers from all corners of the literary academy, the book will have national appeal and offer strategies for teaching African American literature in colleges and universities across the country.” —Gene Jarrett, Boston University “[This book describes] a fruitful tension that brings scholars of major reputation together with newly emerging critics to explore the full range of literary activities that have flourished in the post-Civil Rights era. Notable are such popular influences as hip-hop music and Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club.” —American Literary Scholarship, 2013
Download or read book The Contemporary African American Novel written by Emine Lâle Demirtürk and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the post-1990s African American novels, namely the "neo-urban novel," and develops a new urban discourse for the twenty-first century on how the city, as a social formation, impacts black characters through everyday discursive practices of whiteness. The critique of everyday life in a racial context is important in considering diverse forms of the lived reality of black everyday life in the novelistic representations of the white dominant urban order. African American fictional representations of the city have political significance in that the "neo-urban novel" explores the nature of the American society at large. This book explores the need to understand how whiteness works, what it forecloses, and what it occasionally opens up in everyday life in American society.
Download or read book Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies in Contemporary African American Literature written by Apryl Lewis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-01-09 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies in Contemporary African American Literature expands on a literary tradition where Black writers articulate the impact of slavery's legacy over time. Along with Black Feminist studies, this book demonstrates how trauma studies can transcend Eurocentric roots by encompassing traumatic experiences of other cultures through intersectionality.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to African American Women s Literature written by Angelyn Mitchell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature covers a period dating back to the eighteenth century. These specially commissioned essays highlight the artistry, complexity and diversity of a literary tradition that ranges from Lucy Terry to Toni Morrison. A wide range of topics are addressed, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement, and from the performing arts to popular fiction. Together, the essays provide an invaluable guide to a rich, complex tradition of women writers in conversation with each other as they critique American society and influence American letters. Accessible and vibrant, with the needs of undergraduate students in mind, this Companion will be of great interest to anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important and vital area of American literature.
Download or read book The Contemporary American Novel in Context written by Andrew Dix and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical introduction to the contemporary American novel focusing on contexts, key texts and criticism.
Download or read book The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction written by Darryl Dickson-Carr and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005-10-14 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Ishmael Reed and Toni Morrison to Colson Whitehead and Terry McMillan, Darryl Dickson-Carr offers a definitive guide to contemporary African American literature. This volume-the only reference work devoted exclusively to African American fiction of the last thirty-five years-presents a wealth of factual and interpretive information about the major authors, texts, movements, and ideas that have shaped contemporary African American fiction. In more than 160 concise entries, arranged alphabetically, Dickson-Carr discusses the careers, works, and critical receptions of Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Jamaica Kincaid, Charles Johnson, John Edgar Wideman, Leon Forrest, as well as other prominent and lesser-known authors. Each entry presents ways of reading the author's works, identifies key themes and influences, assesses the writer's overarching significance, and includes sources for further research. Dickson-Carr addresses the influence of a variety of literary movements, critical theories, and publishers of African American work. Topics discussed include the Black Arts Movement, African American postmodernism, feminism, and the influence of hip-hop, the blues, and jazz on African American novelists. In tracing these developments, Dickson-Carr examines the multitude of ways authors have portrayed the diverse experiences of African Americans. The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction situates African American fiction in the social, political, and cultural contexts of post-Civil Rights era America: the drug epidemics of the 1980s and 1990s and the concomitant "war on drugs," the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, the struggle for gay rights, feminism, the rise of HIV/AIDS, and racism's continuing effects on African American communities. Dickson-Carr also discusses the debates and controversies regarding the role of literature in African American life. The volume concludes with an extensive annotated bibliography of African American fiction and criticism.
Download or read book The Contemporary American Crime Novel written by Andrew Pepper and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As America's ethnic and racial character undergoes explosive transformation, its crime fictions trace, contest and celebrate the changes.The Contemporary American Crime Novelis an exciting book that offers a comprehensive review of recent developments in American crime fiction, exploring America's dynamic, fragmented multicultural landscape and how it has transformed the codes and conventions of the crime novel. Featured authors include James Ellroy, James Lee Burke, Sara Paretsky, Barbara Wilson, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Faye Kellerman, Alex Abella, and Chang-Rae Lee.
Download or read book Contemporary African American Fiction Volume 1 written by Jeff Soloway and published by Facts on File. This book was released on 2019-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary African-American Fiction, Volume 1 is a collection of scholarly essays and recent reviews of the best of contemporary African-American literary fiction, including the following titles: A Mercy by Toni Morrison The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead The Mothers by Brit Bennett Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.
Download or read book Best African American Fiction 2009 written by Gerald Lyn Early and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection that celebrates the contributions of African-American authors features short stories and novel excerpts by Michael Thomas, Jacqueline Woodson, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, Stephen Carter, and Christopher Paul Curtis.
Download or read book The Origins of African American Literature 1680 1865 written by Dickson D. Bruce and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the earliest texts of the colonial period to works contemporary with Emancipation, African American literature has been a dialogue across color lines, and a medium through which black writers have been able to exert considerable authority on both sides of that racial demarcation. Dickson D. Bruce argues that contrary to prevailing perceptions of African American voices as silenced and excluded from American history, those voices were loud and clear. Within the context of the wider culture, these writers offered powerful, widely read, and widely appreciated commentaries on American ideals and ambitions. The Origins of African American Literature provides strong evidence to demonstrate just how much writers engaged in a surprising number of dialogues with society as a whole. Along with an extensive discussion of major authors and texts, including Phillis Wheatley's poetry, Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Martin Delany's Blake, Bruce explores less-prominent works and writers as well, thereby grounding African American writing in its changing historical settings. The Origins of African American Literature is an invaluable revelation of the emergence and sources of the specifically African American literary tradition and the forces that helped shape it.
Download or read book African Youth in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture written by Vivian Yenika-Agbaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how African youth are depicted in contemporary literature and popular culture, and discusses the different ways by which they attempt to construct personal and cultural identities through popular culture and social media outlets. The contributors approach the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective, looking at images in children’s and adolescent literature from Africa, and the African diaspora, from Nollywood and Hollywood movies, from popular magazines, and from youth cultures encountered directly through field experiences. The findings reveal that there are many stereotypes about Africa, African youth and black cultures, and that African youth are aware of these. Since they juggle multiple identities shaped by their ethnicities, race and religion, it is often a challenge for them to define themselves. As they also share a global youth culture that transcends these cultural markers, some take advantage of media outlets to voice their concerns and participate in political struggles. Others simply use these to promote their personal interests. Contributors ponder the challenges involved in constructing unique identities, offering ideas on how African youth are doing so successfully or not in different parts of the continent and the African diaspora, and thus offer new possibilities for youth studies.
Download or read book The Contemporary African American Novel written by Bernard W. Bell and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1987 Bernard W. Bell published "The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition", a comprehensive interpretive history of more than 150 novels written by African Americans from 1853 to 1983. This is a sequel and companion to the earlier work, expanding the coverage to 2001.
