Though one of America's best known and loved novels, Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "has often been the object of fierce controversy because of its racist language and reliance on racial stereotypes. This collection of fifteen essays by prominent African American scholars and critics examines the novel's racist elements and assesses the degree to which Twain's ironies succeed or fail to turn those elements into a satirical attack on racism.
Ranging from the laudatory to the openly hostile, these essays include personal impressions of "Huckleberry Finn, " descriptions of...

In "Games of Property, " distinguished critic Thadious M. Davis provides a dazzling new interpretation of William Faulkner's "Go Down, Moses. "Davis argues that in its unrelenting attention to issues related to the ownership of land and people, "Go Down, Moses" ranks among Faulkner's finest and most accomplished works. Bringing together law, social history, game theory, and feminist critiques, she shows that the book is unified by games--fox hunting, gambling with cards and dice, racing--and, like the law, games are rule-dependent forms of social control and commentary. She illuminates the...

In "Games of Property, " distinguished critic Thadious M. Davis provides a dazzling new interpretation of William Faulkner's "Go Down, Moses. "Davis argues that in its unrelenting attention to issues related to the ownership of land and people, "Go Down, Moses" ranks among Faulkner's finest and most accomplished works. Bringing together law, social history, game theory, and feminist critiques, she shows that the book is unified by games--fox hunting, gambling with cards and dice, racing--and, like the law, games are rule-dependent forms of social control and commentary. She illuminates the...

In this innovative approach to southern literary cultures, Thadious Davis analyzes how black southern writers use their spatial location to articulate the vexed connections between society and environment, particularly under segregation and its legacies.

Basing her analysis on texts by Ernest Gaines, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Natasha Trethewey, Olympia Vernon, Brenda Marie Osbey, Sybil Kein, and others, Davis reveals how these writers reconstitute racial exclusion as creative black space, rather than a site of trauma and resistance. Utilizing the social and political separation...