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On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Liberating Voices by
The powerful novelist here turns penetrating critic, giving us in lively style both trenchant literary analysis and fresh insight on the art of writing. When African American writers began to trust the literary possibilities of their own verbal and musical creations, writes Gayl Jones, they began to transform the European and European American models, and to gain greater artistic sovereignty. The vitality of African American literature derives from its incorporation of traditional oral forms: folktales, riddles, idiom, jazz rhythms, spirituals, and blues. Jones traces the development of this literature as African American writers, celebrating their oral heritage, developed distinctive literary forms. The twentieth century saw a new confidence and deliberateness in African American work: the move from surface use of dialect to articulation of a genuine black voice; the move from blacks portrayed for a white audience to characterization relieved of the need to justify. Innovative writing such as Charles Waddell Chesnutt s depiction of black folk culture, Langston Hughes s poetic use of blues, and Amiri Baraka s recreation of the short story as a jazz piece redefined Western literary tradition. For Jones, literary technique is never far removed from its social and political implications. She documents how literary form is inherently and intensely national, and shows how the European monopoly on acceptable forms for literary art stifled American writers both black and white. Jones is especially eloquent in describing the dilemma of the African American writers: to write from their roots yet retain a universal voice; to merge the power and fluidity of oral tradition with the structure needed for written presentation. With this work Gayl Jones has added a new dimension to African American literary history.
Call Number: PS153 .N5 J66 1991
Annotated African American Folktales by
Collected for the first time, these nearly 150 African American folktales animate our past and reclaim a lost cultural legacy to redefine American literature. Drawing from the great folklorists of the past while expanding African American lore with dozens of tales rarely seen before, The New Annotated African American Folktales revolutionizes the canon like no other volume. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar assemble a groundbreaking collection of folktales, myths, and legends that revitalize a vibrant African American past untainted by romantic antebellum sentiment or counterfeit nostalgia. Beginning with introductory essays and 20 seminal African tales as historical background, Gates and Tatar present nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics, but also stories like "The Talking Skull" and "Witches Who Ride," out-of-print tales from the 1890s Southern Workman, and stories that finally incorporate Caribbean and Latin American literature within the canon. With illuminating annotations and revelatory illustrations, The New Annotated African American Folktales reminds us that stories not only move, entertain, and instruct but, more fundamentally, inspire and keep hope alive. color throughout; 160 illustrations
Call Number: GR111.A47 A55 2018
African-American Folktales by
This collection illuminates the unbroken chain of the black oral tradition which is alive in America. The Youngs, who are storytellers and teachers, have assembled an anthology that bears out both the richness and variety of a cultural heritage that has crossed the Atlantic, survived the ignominy of slavery, and triumphed over the ignorance of racism and bigotry. In his introduction, Dr. Rex Ellis underscores the multicultural opportunity this collection offers: They are stories that continue to ....
Call Number: GR111.A47 Y68 1993
Nights with Uncle Remus by
For more than a hundred years, the tales of Joel Chandler Harris have entertained and influenced both readers and writers. Nights with Uncle Remus gathers seventy-one of Harris's most popular narratives, featuring African American trickster tales, etiological myths, Sea Island legends, and chilling ghost stories. Told through the distinct voices of four slave storytellers, indispensable tales like "The Moon in the Mill-Pond" and other Brer Rabbit stories have inspired writers from Mark Twain to William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston to Toni Morrison, and helped revolutionize modern children's literature and folktale collecting. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Call Number: PS1806.A2 B53 2003
Online Articles
- The Trickster in African American Literature
from Freedom's Story, National Humanities Center
Databases
- Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Articles and essays on literary criticism, and biographies of authors from many countries.
- Humanities International Complete This link opens in a new window
Articles and ebooks about humanities topics like arts, history, language, law, literature, philosophy, and politics.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Journals, books, images, and primary sources about many subjects.
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Articles and scholarly essays, historical newspaper articles, primary sources, and timelines you can use for African American topics.
Online From CCBC Libraries
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: 2018-06-30
Ethnic American Literature by
Unlike any other book of its kind, this volume celebrates published works from a broad range of American ethnic groups not often featured in the typical canon of literature. * Highlights the most important print and electronic resources on multicultural literature through a detailed bibliography * Features entries from 50 contributors, all of whom are experts in their fields * Includes cultural works not often highlighted in traditional textbooks, such as Iranian American literature, Dominican American literature, and Puerto Rican American literature
Publication Date: 2015
The Slave's Rebellion by
Episodes of slave rebellions such as Nat Turner's are central to speculations on the trajectory of black history and the goal of black spiritual struggles. Using fiction, history, and oral poetry drawn from the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa, this book analyzes how writers reinterpret episodes of historical slave rebellion to conceptualize their understanding of an ideal "master-less" future. The texts range from Frederick Douglass's The Heroic Slave and Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of this World to Yoruba praise poetry and novels by Nigerian writers Adebayo Faleti and Akinwumi Isola. Each text reflects different "national" attitudes toward the historicity of slave rebellions that shape the ways the texts are read. This is an absorbing book about the grip of slavery and rebellion on modern black thought.
Publication Date: 2005
Reading Africa into American Literature by
Keith Cartwright, assistant professor of English at Roanoke College in Roanoke. Virginia, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal. He is the author of a number of articles about Afro-Creole literature and two books of poetry
Publication Date: 2001
