African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
218 p, Contents: Origins of the divestiture trope in selected literature of the African diaspora -- Diaspora as a trope for the existential condition -- Resonances of the African continent in selected fiction and non-fiction by Zora Neale Hurston -- Orphanage in Simone Schwarz-Bart's The bridge of beyond and Alice Walker's The third life of Grange Copeland -- Polyphonic texture of the trope "junkheaped" in Toni Morrison's Beloved -- Sociological implications of female abandonment in Buchi Emecheta's Second class citizen and The joys of motherhood -- Success phobia of Deighton Boyce in Paul Marshall's Brown girl, Brownstones -- Madness as a response to the female situation of disinheritance in Mariama Bâ's So long a letter and Scarlet song -- Exile of the elderly in Beryl Gilroy's Frangipani house and Boy-Sandwich -- Conclusion: abandonment as a trope for the human condition;
Works like Wheatley's and [Harriet Jacobs]' remind us how important it is to document our history with authenticity. History tells us of the need to write our own stories in our own words, for accuracy, for validation. And this is exactly why writers like Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Poet Laureate Rita Dove, Alice Walker and Louise Bennett Coverly (Jamaica) have revolutionized the written word and established themselves as role models for all of us. Positive images. Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker uses the word "womanist" in her works to refer to the liberation of black women. Through her famous novel "The Color Purple" and other works, she has revolutionized literature in the New World and given great insights into the traditions, beliefs, history, and values of people of African ancestry. The central theme in all of her work becomes the flower of hope that grows out of all despair. Black women writers have created for us a window to the world through which we can make real-life connections. From them we have received portraits in courage and a validation of ourselves. Their words constantly remind us that hope is eternal and that beauty can rise from adversity, as is so aptly expressed in the poignant declaration by Maya Angelou, the first female to read at a U.S. presidential inauguration, "And still I rise."
Within sectors of North America's African-American community, the colloquial expression "being touched by the brush" describes a multi-ethnic individual that possesses subtle Negroid physical features which are only detectable by close inspection by a "trained eye." Here, Edison discusses the historical factors in Puerto Rico and Panama that make up the foundation upon which Francisco Arrivi's "Los Vejigantes" and Carlos Guillermo Wilson's "Chombo" were constructed.;
Hutchinson,George (Editor) and Young,John K. (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
2013
Published:
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
236 p., Always haunted by the commodification of blackness, African American literary production interfaces with the processes of publication and distribution in particularly charged ways. This collection ranges across the history of African American literature, and the authors have much to contribute on such issues as editorial and archival preservation, canonization, and the "packaging" and repackaging of black-authored texts. Includes "More than McKay and Guillén: The Caribbean in Hughes and Bontemps's The Poetry of the Negro (1949)."
