Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> American - African American & Black

A classic in the black literary tradition, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is both a comment on the civil rights problems in the United States in the late 60s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of black militancy.

Dan Freeman, the "spook who sat by the door," is enlisted in the CIA's elitist espionage program. Upon mastering agency tactics, however, he drops out to train young Chicago blacks as "Freedom Fighters" in this explosive, award-winning novel.

As a story of one man's reaction to ruling-class hypocrisy, the book is autobiographical and personal. As a tale of a man's...

Even the most cursory review of black literary production during the nineteenth century indicates that its primary concerns were the issues of slavery, racial subjugation, abolitionist politics and liberation. How did the writers of these narratives -bear witness- to the experiences they describe? At a time when a hegemonic discourse on these subjects already existed, what did it mean to -tell the truth- about slavery?

Impossible Witnesses explores these questions through a study of fiction, poetry, essays, and slave narratives from the abolitionist era. Linking the racialized...

Even the most cursory review of black literary production during the nineteenth century indicates that its primary concerns were the issues of slavery, racial subjugation, abolitionist politics and liberation. How did the writers of these narratives -bear witness- to the experiences they describe? At a time when a hegemonic discourse on these subjects already existed, what did it mean to -tell the truth- about slavery?

Impossible Witnesses explores these questions through a study of fiction, poetry, essays, and slave narratives from the abolitionist era. Linking the racialized...

One of the most prolific and influential African American writers, James Baldwin was for many a harbinger of hope, a man who traversed the genres of art-writing novels, essays, and poetry.

James Baldwin Now takes advantage of the latest interdisciplinary work to understand the complexity of Baldwin's vision and contributions without needing to name him as exclusively gay, expatriate, black, or activist. It was, in fact, Baldwin who said, -it is quite impossible to write a worthwhile novel about a Jew or a Gentile or a Homosexual, for people refuse . . . to function in so neat...

-African American Literary Theory is an extraordinary gift to literary studies. It is necessary, authoritative and thorough. The timing of this book is superb -
--Karla F.C. Holloway, Duke University

-The influence of African American literature can be attributed, in no small part, to the literary theorists gathered in this collection. This is a superb anthology that represents a diversity of voices and points of view, and a much needed historical retrospective of how African American literary theory has developed.-
--Marlon B. Ross, University of Michigan

-A volume of...

African American Literary Theory: A Reader is the first volume to document the central texts and arguments in African American literary theory from the 1920s through the present. As the volume progresses chronologically from the rise of a black aesthetic criticism, through the Blacks Arts Movement, feminism, structuralism and poststructuralism, and the rise of queer theory, it focuses on the key arguments, themes, and debates in each period.

By constantly bringing attention to the larger political and cultural issues at stake in the interpretation of literary texts, the...

Amiri Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones, became known as one of the most militant, anti-white black nationalists of the 1960s Black Power movement. An advocate of Black Cultural Nationalism, Baraka supported the rejection of all things white and western. He helped found and direct the influential Black Arts movement which sought to move black writers away from western aesthetic sensibilities and toward a more complete embrace of the black world. Except perhaps for James Baldwin, no single figure has had more of an impact on black intellectual and artistic life during the last forty...

The legendary Greek figure Orpheus was said to have possessed magical powers capable of moving all living and inanimate things through the sound of his lyre and voice. Over time, the Orphic theme has come to indicate the power of music to unsettle, subvert, and ultimately bring down oppressive realities in order to liberate the soul and expand human life without limits. The liberating effect of music has been a particularly important theme in twentieth-century African American literature.

The nine original essays in Black Orpheus examines the Orphic theme in the fiction of...