Geographies of Flight: Phillis Wheatley to Octavia Butler

305 Pages·2020·2.084 MB·English

by  William Merrill Decker

Geographies of Flight

Geographies of Flight
Phillis Wheatley to Octavia Butler
William Merrill Decker
northwestern university press
evanston, illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2020 by Northwestern University Press.
Published 2020. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Decker, William Merrill, author.
Title: Geographies of flight : Phillis Wheatley to Octavia Butler / William Merrill
Decker.
Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020014715 | ISBN 9780810142329 (paperback) | ISBN
9780810142336 (cloth) | ISBN 9780810142343 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: American literature— African American authors— History and
criticism. | Fugitive slaves in literature. | Escape in literature. | Space and time in
literature. | African diaspora in literature.
Classification: LCC PS153.N5 D36 2020 | DDC 810.9896073— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014715
For Elizabeth
mi amor para siempra

They sowed in the depths the seeds of an invisible presence.
— Édouard Glissant

Contents
Prologue 1
Chapter 1
Signifying Space: Geographies of Domination and Resistance 11
Chapter 2
Voices from the Global South: Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano 33
Chapter 3
Slave State to Free: David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs 67
Chapter 4
Domestic Uplift and Escape Abroad: Booker T. Washington,
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W. E. B. Du Bois 111
Chapter 5
Notes from Underground: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison,
James Baldwin, Malcolm X 147
Chapter 6
Next Worlds: Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler 177
Epilogue
Color outside the Lines 213
Acknowledgments 225
Notes 229
Bibliography 273
Index 287