Classic African American Women S Narratives

A collection of narratives written by African-American women before 1865 who relate their personal stories of captivity, freedom, and the horrors of slavery.

Three contemporary novels of slavery - Margaret Walker's Jubilee (1966), Sherley Anne Williams's Dessa Rose (1986) and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) - are the central focus of Liberating Narratives. In significantly different ways that reflect their individual and socio-political contexts of origin, these three novels can all be read as critiques of historical representation and as alternative spaces for remembrance - 'sites of memory' - that attempt to shift the conceptual ground on which our knowledge of the past is based.

Four autobiographical narratives written by African-American women from 1853 to 1902.

Female Subjectivity in African American Women s Narratives of Enslavement is a new and innovative study of black women s transformation, which focuses on black women writers who support the notion of separate location for a changed female consciousness. This book offers the concept of the "Transient Woman" as a new paradigm and feminist vision for analyzing female subjectivity and consciousness.

The neo-slave narrative is an important development in American literary history and has serious revisionist intentions at its foundation. This book examines how contemporary African American women writers have shaped the genre. These authors have written neo-slave narratives to reinscribe history from the perspective of the African American woman, most specifically the nineteenth century enslaved mother. The writers considered in this study—Sherley Anne Williams, Toni Morrison, J. California Cooper, Gayl Jones, and Octavia Butler—explore American slavery through the lens of gender, both to interrogate the myth that enslaved women, denied the privilege of having a gender identity by the institution of slavery, were in fact genderless, and to celebrate the acts of resistance which enabled enslaved women to mother in the fullest sense of the term. The volume begins with an overview of historical representations of slavery in America, from the slave narrative itself to the revisionist scholarship of the 1960s. The book then examines several individual neo-slave narratives, such as Margaret Walker's Jubilee (1966), Williams' Dessa Rose (1986), Morrison's Beloved (1987), Cooper's Family (1991), Jones' Corregidora (1975), and Butler's Kindred (1979). What the women in these novels have in common is the fact that they mother; what the writers have in common is a tendency to utilize subversive strategies such as reversal, blurring, and the creation of myth to dramatize gender identity and to highlight the varied nature of motherhood as enslaved women experienced it. The final chapter evaluates the influence of the neo-slave narrative on American literature in general and on popular perceptions and misperceptions of African American women.

Women have had a complex experience in African American culture. The first work of its kind, this encyclopedia approaches African American literature from a Women's Studies perspective. While Yolanda Williams Page's Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers provides biographical entries on more than 150 literary figures, this book is much broader in scope. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries on African American women writers, as well as on male writers who have treated women in their works. Entries on genres, periods, themes, characters, historical events, texts, places, and other topics are included as well. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and relates its subject to the overall experience of women in African American literature. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. African American culture is enormously diverse, and the experience of women in African American society is especially complex. Women were among the first African American writers, and works by black women writers are popular among students and general readers alike. At the same time, African American women have been oppressed, and texts by black male authors represent women in a variety of ways. The first of its kind, this encyclopedia approaches African American literature from a Women's Studies perspective, and thus significantly illuminates the African American cultural experience through literary works. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries, written by numerous expert contributors. In addition to covering male and female African American authors, the encyclopedia also discusses themes, major works and characters, genres, periods, historical events, places, and other topics. Included are entries on such authors as: ; Maya Angelou ; James Baldwin ; Frederick Douglass ; Nikki Giovanni ; June Jordan ; Claude McKay ; Ishmael Reed ; Sojourner Truth ; Phillis Wheatley ; And many others. In addition, the many works discussed include: ; Beloved ; Blanche on the Lam ; Iknow Why the Caged Bird Sings ; The Men of Brewster Place ; Quicksand ; The Street ; Waiting to Exhale ; And many more. The many topical entries cover: ; Black Feminism ; Black Nationalism ; Conjuring ; Children's and Young Adult Literature ; Detective Fiction ; Epistolary Novel ; Motherhood ; Sexuality ; Spirituality ; Stereotypes ; And many others. Entries relate their topics to the experience of African American women and cite works for further reading. Features and Benefits: ; Includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries. ; Draws on the work of numerous expert contributors. ; Includes a selected, general bibliography. ; Offers a range of finding aids, such as a list of entries, a guide to related topics, and an extensive index. ; Supports the literature curriculum by helping students analyze major writers and works. ; Supports the social studies curriculum by helping students use literature to understand the experience of African American women. ; Covers the full chronological range of African American literature. ; Fosters a respect for cultural diversity. ; Develops research skills by directing students to additional sources of information. ; Builds bridges between African American history, literature, and Women's Studies.

Kanneh locates Black identity in relation to Africa and discovers how histories connected with the domination, imagination, and interpretation of Africa are constructive of a range of political and theoretic parameters around race.

Six narrations by slave women about their lives during and after their years in bondage, honoring the nobility and strength of African-American women of that era.