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On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Let Nobody Turn Us Around by
This anthology of black writers traces the evolution of African-American perspectives throughout American history, from the early years of slavery to the end of the twentieth century. The essays, manifestos, interviews, and documents assembled here, contextualized with critical commentaries from Marable and Mullings, introduce the reader to the character and important controversies of each period of black history. The selections represent a broad spectrum of ideology. Conservative, radical, nationalistic, and integrationist approaches can be found in almost every period, yet there have been striking shifts in the evolution of social thought and activism. The editors judiciously illustrate how both continuity and change affected the African-American community in terms of its internal divisions, class structure, migration, social problems, leadership, and protest movements. They also show how gender, spirituality, literature, music, and connections to Africa and the Caribbean played a prominent role in black life and history.
Call Number: E184.6 .L48 2009
The Norton Anthology of African American Literature by
Organized chronologically, this anthology of African-American literature brings together the work of 123 writers from 1746 to the present. This second edition features a varied selection of genres and a wealth of vernacular forms.
Call Number: PS508.N3 N67 2004
Of Poetry and Protest by
This extraordinary volume collects the poems of forty-four of America's most talented African American wordsmiths, including Pulitzer Prize? winning poets Rita Dove, Natasha Tretheway, Yusef Komunyakaa and Tracy K. Smith, as well as the work of other luminaries such as Elizabeth Alexander, Ishmael Reed, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. Accompanying each poem is a photograph of the poet along with a first-person biography and the book also includes personal essays on race from Harry Belafonte, Amiri Baraka and Reverend R. William Barber II, architect of the Moral Mondays movement. Images and iconic political posters of the Black Lives Matter movement, Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party accompany the work. Taken together, this remarkable book gives voice to the current conversation about race in America while also providing historical and cultural context. It serves as an excellent introduction to African American poetry and is a must-have for every reader committed to social justice and racial harmony.
Call Number: PS591.N4 O33 2016
Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep by
Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep is a rich collection of the work of post-World War II African-American poets. It brings together the voices of the most important African-American poets of our time, beginning with the highly influential Robert Hayden and Gwendolyn Brooks, and covers an astonishing range of styles and techniques. This extraordinary body of poetry is the flowering of an artistic tradition established earlier in this century by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes. The newer work comprises many different visions, ranging from the chiseled and layered modernism of Jay Wright to the plainspoken ferocity of Sonia Sanchez, from the dazzling witticisms of Ishmael Reed to the plangent lyricism of Rita Dove. Edited by the distinguished poet Michael Harper and his star student and colleague Anthony Walton, this notable collection of work will be the standard anthology in the field for years to come.
Call Number: PS591.N4E94 1994
Masterpieces of African-American Literature by
A unique and vital guide that summarizes, explains and evaluates the greatest works of African-American literature -- including articles on writings from James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Toni Morrison and many more.
Call Number: PS153.N5 M264 1992
African American Literature by
This is the first readers' advisory guide to focus specifically on African American literature. It is designed to help book professionals better serve not only African American readers, but all readers who enjoy works by African American authors. Like other titles in the series, the s book organizes titles by genres--crime and detective fiction, frontier literature, historical fiction, inspirational literature, speculative fiction, romance, and mainstream fiction. In addition to novels, the authors include a chapter on Life Stories--diaries, memoirs, and autobiographies--since African American literature was born of these forms, which share many appeals with fiction and continue to play an important role in literary tradition. Each chapter is further organized by subgenre and theme. Title-author and subject indexes provide additional access. A list of resources for information on African American authors is posted on the Libraries Unlimited Web site as a supplement to the book. In all, more than 700 titles are categorized and described. Award-winning titles are noted. In addition, keywords, and subject lists accompany each entry. A brief history of the evolution of African American literature, guidelines for collection development and research, and tips for the readers' advisor makes this a complete resource for readers' advisors, reference librarians, and collection development specialists in public and academic libraries. It will also have great appeal to high school libraries, and will be a useful resource for college-level courses on African American literature. Young adult and adult. Grades 10 and up.
Call Number: PS153.N5 A3364 2004
Online From CCBC Libraries
Every Goodbye Ain't Gone by
Showcases brilliant and experimental work in African American poetry. Just prior to the Second World War, and even more explosively in the 1950s and 1960s, a far-reaching revolution in aesthetics and prosody by black poets ensued, some working independently and others in organized groups. Little of this new work was reflected in the anthologies and syllabi of college English courses of the period. Even during the 1970s, when African American literature began to receive substantial critical attention, the work of many experimental black poets continued to be neglected. Every Goodbye Ain't Gone presents the groundbreaking work of many of these poets who carried on the innovative legacies of Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Hayden. Whereas poetry by such key figures such as Amiri Baraka, Tolson, Jayne Cortez, Clarence Major, and June Jordan is represented, this anthology also elevates into view the work of less studied poets such as Russell Atkins, Jodi Braxton, David Henderson, Bob Kaufman, Stephen Jonas, and Elouise Loftin. Many of the poems collected in the volume are currently unavailable and some will appear in print here for the first time. Coeditors Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey provide a critical introduction that situates the poems historically and highlights the ways such poetry has been obscured from view by recent critical and academic practices. The result is a record of experimentation, instigation, and innovation that links contemporary African American poetry to its black modernist roots and extends the terms of modern poetics into the future.
Publication Date: 2006
The Encyclopedia of African-American Writing by
A timely survey of an important sector of American letters, The Encyclopedia of African-American Writing covers the role and influence of African American cultural leaders, from all walks of life, from the 18th century to the present. Readers will explore what inspired various African-American writers to create poems, plays, short stories, novels, essays, opinion pieces and numerous other works, and how those writings contributed to culture in America today.
Publication Date: 2018
Notable African American Writers by
Notable African American Writers contains 80 essays on important African American writers in all genres- from slave narratives to abolitionist tracts, from the harlem Renaissance of the 1920s to the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Publication Date: 2006
What Was African American Literature? by
African American literature is over. With this provocative claim Kenneth Warren sets out to identify a distinctly African American literatureâe"and to change the terms with which we discuss it. Rather than contest other definitions, Warren makes a clear and compelling case for understanding African American literature as creative and critical work written by black Americans within and against the strictures of Jim Crow America. Within these parameters, his book outlines protocols of reading that best make sense of the literary works produced by African American writers and critics over the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. In Warrenâe(tm)s view, African American literature begged the question: what would happen to this literature if and when Jim Crow was finally overthrown? Thus, imagining a world without African American literature was essential to that literature. In support of this point, Warren focuses on three moments in the history of Phylon, an important journal of African American culture. In the dialogues Phylon documents, the question of whether race would disappear as an organizing literary category emerges as shared ground for critical and literary practice. Warren also points out that while scholarship by black Americans has always been the province of a petit bourgeois elite, the strictures of Jim Crow enlisted these writers in a politics that served the race as a whole. Finally, Warrenâe(tm)s work sheds light on the current moment in which advocates of African American solidarity insist on a past that is more productively put behind us.
Publication Date: 2011
African-American Poets by
This volume focuses on the principal African-American poets from colonial times to the Harlem Renaissance and the World War II era, paying tribute to a rich heritage that has deeply influenced the nation's literature. Poets covered in this volume include Phillis Wheatley, author of the first volume of verse published by an African American, and the seminal figures Gwendolyn Brooks, Countee Cullen, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer. Complete with a chronology, bibliography, and notes on the contributors, this new volume in the ""Bloom's Modern Critical Views"" series also features an essay by noted literary critic Harold Bloom, who introduces the volume with his thoughts on this group of vibrant poets whose work has altered the landscape of American literature.
Publication Date: 2009
African-American Poets by
This volume examines contemporary African-American poets from Robert Hayden to Rita Dove to the new voices establishing themselves at the beginning of the 21st century. This new edition offers a selection of contemporary critical commentary on this proud and enduring poetic tradition and features an introductory essay by literary scholar Harold Bloom, an index for quick reference, a bibliography, and a chronology.
Publication Date: 2010
African-American Writers
Praise for the previous edition: "...contains a wealth of information...a valuable addition to any library's collection."—American Reference Books Annual "...recommended for high-school, public, and undergraduate libraries..."—Booklist "...well written and concise...very useful...Recommended."—Choice "...thorough, well-researched...well-organized and comprehensive...[an] excellent volume..."—VOYA African-American Writers, Revised Edition profiles popular and prominent African-American writers across many genres of literature. Each entry in this thoroughly revised resource provides a biographical profile, concentrating on the major literary works and accomplishments of each author as well as an outline of his or her contributions to American literature. A general bibliography and subject indexes complete the text. New and revised profiles include: Maya Angelou Alvin Aubert Edwidge Danticat Eric Jerome Dickey John Hope Franklin Ernest J. Gaines Henry Louis Gates Jr. E. Lynn Harris Randall Kenan Suzan-Lori Parks Ntozake Shange Colson Whitehead and many more.
Publication Date: 2010
Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers by
African American women writers published extensively during the Harlem Renaissance and have been extraordinarily prolific since the 1970s. This book surveys the world of African American women writers. Included are alphabetically arranged entries on more than 150 novelists, poets, playwrights, short fiction writers, autobiographers, essayists, and influential scholars. The Encyclopedia covers established contemporary authors such as Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor, along with a range of neglected and emerging figures. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a brief biography, a discussion of major works, a survey of the author's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. Literature students will value this book for its exploration of African American literature, while social studies students will appreciate its examination of social issues through literature. African American women writers have made an enormous contribution to our culture. Many of these authors wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, a particularly vital time in African American arts and letters, while others have been especially active since the 1970s, an era in which works by African American women are adapted into films and are widely read in book clubs. Literature by African American women is important for its aesthetic qualities, and it also illuminates the social issues which these authors have confronted. This book conveniently surveys the lives and works of African American women writers. Included are alphabetically arranged entries on more than 150 African American women novelists, poets, playwrights, short fiction writers, autobiographers, essayists, and influential scholars. Some of these figures, such as Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor, are among the most popular authors writing today, while others have been largely neglected or are recently emerging. Each entry provides a biography, a discussion of major works, a survey of the writer's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. The Encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. Students and general readers will welcome this guide to the rich achievement of African American women. Literature students will value its exploration of the works of these writers, while social studies students will appreciate its examination of the social issues these women confront in their works.
Publication Date: 2007
The African American Roots of Modernism by
The period between 1880 and 1918, at the end of which Jim Crow was firmly established and the Great Migration of African Americans was well under way, was not the nadir for black culture, James Smethurst reveals, but instead a time of profound response from African American intellectuals. The African American Roots of Modernism explores how the Jim Crow system triggered significant artistic and intellectual responses from African American writers, deeply marking the beginnings of literary modernism and, ultimately, notions of American modernity. In identifying the Jim Crow period with the coming of modernity, Smethurst upsets the customary assessment of the Harlem Renaissance as the first nationally significant black arts movement, showing how artists reacted to Jim Crow with migration narratives, poetry about the black experience, black performance of popular culture forms, and more. Smethurst introduces a whole cast of characters, including understudied figures such as William Stanley Braithwaite and Fenton Johnson, and more familiar authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, and James Weldon Johnson. By considering the legacy of writers and artists active between the end of Reconstruction and the rise of the Harlem Renaissance, Smethurst illuminates their influence on the black and white U.S. modernists who followed.
Publication Date: 2011
