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After a long and painful transatlantic passage, African captives reached a continent they hadn't even known existed, where they were treated in ways that broke every law of civilization as they understood it. This was the discovery of America for a good number of our ancestors, one quite different from the "paradise" Columbus heralded but no less instrumental in shaping the country's history. What finding the New World meant to those who never sought it, and how they made the hostile, unfamiliar continent their own, is the subject of this volume, the first truly international collection of essays on African American literature and culture.

Distinguished scholars, critics, and writers from around the world gather here to examine a great variety of moments that have defined the African American experience. What were the values, images, and vocabulary that accompanied African "explorers" on their terrifying Columbiad, and what new forms did they develop to re-invent America from a black perspective? How did an extremely heterogeneous group of African pioneers remake themselves as African Americans? The authors search out answers in such diverse areas as slavery, the transatlantic tradition, urbanization, rape and lynching, gender, Paris, periodicals, festive moments, a Berlin ethnologist, Afrocentrism, Mark Twain, Spain, Casablanca, orality, the 1960s, Black-Jewish relations, television images, comedy, and magic. William Wells Brown, Frank Webb, W. E. B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Etheridge Knight, Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, and Charles Johnson are among the many writers they discuss in detail. The result, a landmark text in African American studies, reveals, within a broader context than ever before, the great and often unpredictable variety of complex cultural forces that have been at work in black America.

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This book is written by teachers interested in bringing African American literature into the classroom. Documented here is the learning process that these educators experienced themselves as they read and discussed the stories & pedagogical. ... Read more

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This book strikes against the mariginalization of A/A lit.
The authors chosen for this edited work write in a reader-friendly manner. The theory of teaching African American literature is grounded in classroom practice. Individual works of authors along with different genres arediscussed and placed in the context of classroom instruction. The strugglesthat are encountered in an attempt to incorporate A/A lit is alsodiscussed. This is a great resource for educators to have. I also found thecompiled bibliography very useful. A very candid, thoughtful piece of work. ... Read more

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Now in paperback! A collection of fourteen essays that address major issues related to significant works of African-American young adult literature. ... Read more

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From 1880 to 1940, Hopkins, Fauset, and Bonner shaped an African American female response to national and global issues as they fought to rid the world of racism, restrictive gender roles, and oppression.Between 1880 and 1916, using traditional 19th-century literary genres spliced with modern techniques, Hopkins roused her peers to resist segregation and to end reconstruction and the objectification of black women. Serving as the editor for The Colored American Magazine from 1900 to 1904 and writing novels, plays, short stories, anthropological pieces, and historical tributes, Hopkins evoked the fiery spirit of abolitionism, claiming that the battle had not yet been completed. From 1912 through 1932, Fauset wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, children's literature, travelogs, poetry, and editorials. While working as literary editor for The Crisis, she wrote about her own special concern: the machinations of middle class black communities and the manner in which popular racist and sexist images bombarded and destroyed the integrity of the black self. Bonner composed 25 pieces between 1925 and 1949, examining the urban environment and exposed the triple threat of segregation, sexism, and ghettoization.
(Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 1997; revised with new introduction, afterword) ... Read more

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-- Susan Castillo, University of Glasgow,American Studies

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What are the connections between cattle branding and Christian salvation, between livestock castration and square dancing, between rustling and the making of spurs and horsehair bridles in prison, between children's coloring books and cowboy poetry as it is practiced today? The Cowboy uses literary, historical, folkloric, and pop cultural sources to document ways in which cowboys address religion, gender, economics, and literature. Arguing that cowboys are defined by the work they do, Allmendinger sets out in each chapter to investigate one form of labor (such as branding, castration, or rustling) that cowboys perform in their "work culture." He then looks at early oral poems that cowboys recited around campfires, on trail drives, at roundups, and at home in their bunkhouses, and at later poems, histories and autobiographies written by cowboys--most of which have never before been studied by scholars. He discovers that these texts not only deal with work but with larger concerns, including art, morality, spirituality, and male sexuality. In addition to spotlighting little-known texts, art, and archival sources, The Cowboy examines the works of Twain, Steinbeck, Cather, Norris, Dana, McMurtry, and others, and features more than 60 historic photographs, many of which have not been published until now. ... Read more

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Here's a fresh opportunity to learn more about these fine titles and integrate them into the curriculum. The first half of the book presents annotated bibliographies of all author and illustrator winners and honor books. The entire second half of the book is devoted to activities, including some reproducibles, based on select titles. ... Read more

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Terrific Resource for Great YA Literature
I discovered this book when I was coordinating a middle school book group with at-risk kids, primarily African American kids.I was looking for great books that would appeal to the kids, characters and stories they could relate to, outside of the norm.The Coretta Scott King Award List is a wonderful source of young adult literature.This book is the only one of its kind that I could find that offered lesson plans and reading guides, all kinds of enrichment materials, based on CSK Award Winners.My only complaint is that it was published in 2000 and has not been updated! ;-( ... Read more

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Clyde Taylor exposes the concept of "art" as a tool of Ethnocentricity and racial ideology. He challenges the history of Aesthetics as a recent invention of privileged Western consumerism, and questions the myth of its ancient Greek origin. Aestheticism, he says, is a party to the establishment of whiteness as cultural norm. "The aesthetic experience" is revealed to be the stylistic/structural contribution to the Western master narrative which dominates historical interpretation. Areas such as cinema studies, the avant garde, Marxist and feminist criticism are seen as seriously compromised by this aesthetic reasoning. Examining various texts including "The Birth of a Nation", Taylor demonstrates how rationales of "art" are used to mask personal, class, and cultural biases. Taylor offers a "critique of representation" as one alternative to aestheticism. "Imitation of Life", "The Cotton Club", and "The Marrow of Tradition" are read as "doppelganger discourses" where the values of one social group are mobilized as the narrative double of a more powerful group. Taylor's innovative analysis of the semantics of unequal power refers to these doublings as "ironies of discourse".Novels and films by Chinua Achebe, Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, Ousmane Sembene, Spike Lee, Souleymanne Cisse, Victor Masayesva, and Julie Dash, and the Vietnam Memorial design of Maya Lin are scrutinized in terms of resistance to the reign of the dominant system of aesthetics. According to Taylor whatever was once gained through this narcissistic "aesthetic gaze" has long since been exhausted. Liberation from its narrow assumptions will open richer resources to human imagination and creativity. ... Read more

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An exhaustive, elegant investigation of race and the western aesthetic
I've now used Taylor's book for two years in my class. The seminar exploresrace and the western literary aesthetic. Thanks to Clyde Taylor's deft analysis of how, why and where race is reified in American literature and film, I can spend less time detailing it in class.
Well-written and informative, the writings make for excellent discussions.

Michelle Lamb Discher ... Read more

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This collection of essays provides an imaginative international perspective on ways to incorporate black British writing and culture in the study of English literature, and presents theoretically sophisticated and practical strategies for doing so. It offers a pedagogical, pragmatic and ideological introduction to the field for those without background, and an integrated body of current and stimulating essays for those who are already knowledgeable.
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Black British Writing
I loved how this book shows black British studies as it is taught in the US.Many American professors teach British literature of the last century --but end up focusing only on the modernists or maybe as far as the postmodernists. A lot has happened since then people!These professors must teach fascinating classes, because they cover some of the most interesting and dynamic contemporary writers in Britain and deal with black British political issues that many Americans are simply unaware of.

Black British Writing by R. Victoria Arana and Lauri Ramey
Published in the US this year by Palgrave Macmillan this collection of essays aims "to provide an international perspective on ways to incorporate black British writing and culture in the study of English literature." Written by two academics in the US, one of whom is from the historically black Howard University this is a text aimed at teachers and lecturers who want their programmes to engage with contemporary black British writing and are open to the authors' "imaginative, theoretically sophisticated and practical strategies" for achieving this aim.

Altogether the eleven essays range from the pedagogical, as in Maria Helena Lima's article `The Politics of Teaching Black and British', through the historical, such as Judith Bryan's `The Evolution of Black London'. There are discussions specifically on novels-`Transformations Within the Black British Novel' by Kadija George Seisay and Jude Chudi Okpala's piece on Ben Okri. There's also a marvellous chapter on verse- Contemporary Black British Poetry by Lauri Ramey begins her discussion by citing and analysing SuAndi's poem `Home'. I found all of these essays interesting and compelling, both as a lecturer and a writer. But the last article by Tracey Walters, "A Black Briton's View of Black British Literature and Scholarship" was particularly immediate and relates to the vexed issue of black communities' largely unhappy relationship with the mainstream UK publishing industry.

In this piece the author talks about her growing up in the UK and now living and teaching in the US, her relatively new engagement with Black British Literature and the way the Windrush celebrations made it possible for her to get better access to such literature in the US. And yet in spite of the cultural activism that made considerable inroads into British publishing Walters remains critical of the British publishing industry which tends to ignore the vast population of black British writers. Of course you will see African American writers' work here in the UK, but that is because they are already published in the US by US publishers so there's no risk involved for what is usually the UK branch of the same company.
The publishing issue is also linked to the fact that Caribbean-born writers tend to enjoy relatively more exposure in the US and the UK, "whereas British born authors like Courtia Newland and Dorothea Smartt do not enjoy the same broad- based reading audience nor the critical attention they deserve." Of course we can think of a few exceptions- I'm thinking of Zadie Smith in particular. It is interesting that she has chosen to set her latest novel, On Beauty in the US. I've talked to some who have read the book and they do wonder to what extent was this move a market-driven decision?

Walters is keen to insure that Black British literature is visible and integral to all understandings of African diasporic literature, (or indeed Asian diasporic literature since at various times the term black has been used in a more inclusive way than it has in the US). She also stresses the importance of writers like Buchi Emecheta, David Dabydeen, Ferdinand Dennis, Hazel Carby and others who not only are terrific writers but who also "work as historians, critics and cultural interpreters".

Black British Writing is a deceptively slim volume. It's a book that opens up discussion and calls for strategic thinking and practical engagement with its ideas. It begs the question over and over again of how can this kind of book get published in the UK? How could it be written, edited and inclusive of Black authors? Not such a book every now and again but regularly and successfully, alongside and in step with the contributions we make to this country and the world.



Anita Franklin
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Great Teaching Tool
Teaching the Selected Works of Mildred D. Taylor (Young Adult Novels in the Classroom) is an excellent tool for using Mildred Taylor books in your classroom.I used 5 different books to do literature circles in my social studies class and this book helped tremendously in preparing questions and activities.Mildred Taylor books are an excellent way to teach about racial injustice, and using Teaching the Selected Works of Mildred D. Taylor (Young Adult Novels in the Classroom) made the unit even more of a success. Excellent, ready to use, teacher friendly resource! ... Read more

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A major reevaluation of relationships among Blacks, Jews, and Irish in the years between the Irish Famine and the end of World War II, The Colors of Zion argues that the cooperative efforts and sympathies among these three groups, each persecuted and subjugated in its own way, was much greater than often acknowledged today. For the Black, Jewish, and Irish writers, poets, musicians, and politicians at the center of this transatlantic study, a sense of shared wrongs inspired repeated outpourings of sympathy. If what they have to say now surprises us, it is because our current constructions of interracial and ethnic relations have overemphasized conflict and division. As George Bornstein says in his Introduction, he chooses “to let the principals speak for themselves.”

While acknowledging past conflicts and tensions, Bornstein insists on recovering the “lost connections” through which these groups frequently defined their plights as well as their aspirations. In doing so, he examines a wide range of materials, including immigration laws, lynching, hostile race theorists, Nazis and Klansmen, discriminatory university practices, and Jewish publishing houses alongside popular plays like The Melting Pot and Abie’s Irish Rose, canonical novels like Ulysses and Daniel Deronda, music from slave spirituals to jazz, poetry, and early films such as The Jazz Singer. The models of brotherhood that extended beyond ethnocentrism a century ago, the author argues, might do so once again today, if only we bear them in mind. He also urges us to move beyond arbitrary and invidious categories of race and ethnicity.

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Coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Award, this one-of-a-kind volume gathers together the best of the best in African American children's literature with: comprehensive coverage of the award winning books; biographical profiles that introduce the creative artists and illustrators; color plates that give a vital sense of the story and art; and, a new subject index ideal for curriculum planning. In honor of the special anniversary, celebrated poet Arnold Adoff has written a commemorative poem, 'of course', included in this book. Excellent for curriculum planning, collection development, and reference, this is a must-have for every library. ... Read more

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Comprehensive and Artistic
Dr. Henrietta Smith has created another comprehensive and all inclusive list of Coretta Scott King Awards winners. It has so many beautiful illustrations taken from the award winners, and it proves to be a substantive resource!

The Coretta Scott King Awards, 1970-2009: 40th Anniversary
Dr. Henrietta M. Smith creates a wealth of information in this fourth edition that is sure to enlighten its readers. The Coretta King Awards, 1970-2009, constructs highly accessible information in a straight-forward, simple to use, reference format with breathtaking illustrations. The showcased color plates are crisp and uncluttered exemplifying their perfection. The book offers inspirational knowledge on the authors through the profile sections and a peek into the many lives that have changed the face of children's literature. In the moving conversations with chosen authors, like Sharon M. Draper, the spirit of this book is captured, illuminating readers with her love of writing. With invaluable information, this insightful look into quality children's literature is highly recommended.

Every Library Should Have This Book

Dr. Henrietta M. Smith has done her usual extraordinary work on this brilliant 4th edition of theCoretta Scott King Awards, 1970-2009: 40th Anniversary edition. The color plates are sparkling and sharp. ... Read more