The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel (Cambridge Companions to Literature) PDF
Preview The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
This page intentionally left blank TheCambridgeCompaniontotheAfricanAmericanNovel The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel presents new essayscoveringtheonehundredandfiftyyearhistoryoftheAfricanAmerican novel.ExpertsinthefieldfromtheUSandEuropeaddresssomeofthemajor issuesinthegenre:passing,theProtestnovel,theBluesnovel,andwomanism amongothers.ThisCompanionisfulloffreshinsightsintothesymbolic,aes- thetic,andpoliticalfunctionofcanonicalandnon-canonicalfiction.Chapters examineworksbyRalphEllison,LeonForrest,ToniMorrison,IshmaelReed, AliceWalker,JohnEdgarWideman,andmanyothers.Theyreflectarangeof criticalmethodsintendedtopromptnewandexperiencedreaderstoconsider theAfricanAmericannovelasaculturalandliteraryactofextraordinarysig- nificance.Thisvolume,includingachronologyandguidetofurtherreading, isanimportantresourceforstudentsandteachersalike. CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE AFRICAN AMERICAN NOVEL EDITED BY MARYEMMA GRAHAM UniversityofKansas cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridgecb22ru,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Informationo nthi stitle :www.cambri dge.org/9780521815741 © Cambridge University Press 2004 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexceptionandtotheprovisionof relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. Firstpublishedinprintformat 2004 isbn-13 978-0-511-22179-8 eBook (Adobe Reader) isbn-10 0-511-22179-7 eBook (Adobe Reader) isbn-13 978-0-521-81574-1 hardback isbn-10 0-521-81574-6 hardback isbn-13 978-0-521-01637-7 paperback isbn-10 0-521-01637-1 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls forexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,anddoesnot guaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. CONTENTS Listofcontributorspage vii Chronologyofmajorworksandevents,1645–2000 x Introduction 1 maryemma graham PartI: Thelongjourney:theAfricanAmericannovel andhistory 1 Freeingthevoice,creatingtheself:thenovelandslavery 17 christopher mulvey 2 Reconstructingtherace:thenovelafterslavery 34 m. giulia fabi 3 ThenoveloftheNegroRenaissance 50 george hutchinson 4 Caribbeanmigration,ex-isles,andtheNewWorldnovel 70 giselle liza anatol PartII: Searchforaform:theNewAmericannovel 5 Theneo-slavenarrative 87 ashraf h. a. rushdy 6 ComingofageintheAfricanAmericannovel 106 claudine raynaud v contents 7 Thebluesnovel 122 steven c. tracy 8 Frommodernismtopostmodernism:blackliterature atthecrossroads 139 fritz gysin 9 TheAfricanAmericannovelandpopularculture 156 susanne b. dietzel PartIII: AfricanAmericanvoices:frommargintocenter 10 Everybody’sprotestnovel:theeraofRichardWright 173 jerry w. ward jr. 11 Findingcommonground:RalphEllisonandJamesBaldwin 189 herman beavers 12 AmericanNeo-HooDooism:thenovelsofIshmaelReed 203 pierre-damien mvuyekure 13 Spacesforreaders:thenovelsofToniMorrison 221 marilyn mobley mckenzie 14 AfricanAmericanwomanism:fromZoraNealeHurston toAliceWalker 233 lovalerie king 15 VernacularmodernisminthenovelsofJohnEdgar WidemanandLeonForrest 253 keith byerman Bibliography 268 Index 296 vi CONTRIBUTORS The editor is most grateful to Patty Jasper-Zellner for her tireless efforts in assistingwiththepreparationofthistext. giselle liza anatol isAssistantProfessorofEnglishattheUniversity of Kansas. She is currently completing a book-length manuscript on repre- sentations of motherhood in contemporary Caribbean women’s literature andhaspublishedontheworkofLoreneCary,EdwidgeDanticat,Jamaica Kincaid, Audre Lorde, and Paule Marshall. Her edited collection on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays, was publishedbyGreenwoodPress(2003). herman beavers is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of two books, A Neighborhood of Feeling (1986), and Wrestling Angels into Song: The Fictions of Ernest J. Gaines andJamesAlanMcPherson(1995).Hehascompletedacollectionofpoems entitledStillLifewithGuitarandiscurrentlyworkingonAndBidHimSing, which examines representations of susceptibility and shame in twentieth- centuryAfricanAmericanwritingbyblackmalewriters. keith byerman isProfessorofEnglishandWomen’sStudiesatIndiana State University and Associate Editor of African American Review. He has taught courses in African American and Southern literature and culture at the University of Texas, University of Vienna, and Columbus College in Georgia. He is the author of several books and articles, including works on Alice Walker, W. E. B. Du Bois, John Edgar Wideman, and folklore in contemporaryfiction. susanne b. dietzel istheDirectoroftheWomen’sResourceCenterat LoyolaUniversity,NewOrleans.HerpublicationshaveappearedinFeminist Teacher,SouthernQuarterly,TheHistoryofSouthernWomen’sLiterature, andTheOxfordCompaniontoAfricanAmericanLiterature. vii list of contributors m. giulia fabi istheauthorofPassingandtheRiseoftheAfricanAmer- icanNovel(2001)andtheeditorofaseriesofItaliantranslationsofAfrican Americannovels.SheistenuredAssistantProfessorofAmericanLiterature attheUniversityofFerrara,Italy. maryemma graham isProfessorofEnglishattheUniversityofKansas and founder/director of the Project on the History of Black Writing. She haspublishedextensivelyonAmericanandAfricanAmericanliteratureand culture and has directed numerous national and international workshops and institutes on literature, literary history, criticism, and pedagogy. Her most recent books include Fields Watered with Blood: Critical Essays on Margaret Walker (2001) and Conversations with Margaret Walker (2002). SheiscurrentlycompletingTheHouseWhereMySoulLives,theauthorized biographyofWalker. fritz gysin hasjustretiredasProfessorofEnglishandAmericanLitera- tureattheUniversityofBerne,Switzerland.Authorofnumerousarticlesand two books on American and African American literature, he most recently editedApocalypse(2001)and(withChristopherMulvey)BlackLiberation intheAmericas(2001). george hutchinson is the author of The Ecstatic Whitman (1986) andTheHarlemRenaissanceinBlackandWhite(1995).HeistheBoothM. TarkingtonProfessorofLiteraryStudiesatIndianaUniversity,Bloomington. lovalerie king is Assistant Professor of English at Pennsylvania State Universityandhaspublishedanumberofcriticalessays,articles,andreviews onAfricanAmericanliterature.SherecentlycompletedAStudents’Guideto AfricanAmericanLiterature:Fictionandiscurrentlyrevisingforpublication TheAfricanAmericanLiteraryCountertextonTheft,Race,andEthics. marilyn mobley mckenzie is Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at George Mason University and is the author of Folk Roots and Mythic Wings in Sarah Orne Jewett and Toni Morri- son:TheCulturalFunctionofNarrative(1992)publishedunderherformer name,MarilynSandersMobley.SheiscurrentlycompletingabookonToni MorrisonentitledSpacesforReaders:ToniMorrison’sNarrativePoeticsand CulturalPolitics. christopher mulvey isProfessorofEnglishandAmericanStudiesat King Alfred’s College, Winchester. He is author of Anglo-American Land- scapes (1983) and Transatlantic Manners (1990). With John Simons he editedNewYork:CityasText(1990),andwithFritzGysin,heeditedBlack LiberationintheAmericas(2001). viii
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