Encyclopedia of African-American Literature (Online) by
overs the entire spectrum of the African-American literary tradition, from the 18th-century writings of pioneers such as Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley, to 20th-century canonic texts, to the finest of today's best-selling authors and rap artists.
A History of the African American Novel by
An overview of the development of the African American novel and its major genres.
James Baldwin's Understanding of God by
Focuses on Baldwin's experiences as a gifted black writer who fought valiantly against racism and wrote openly about homosexual relationships.
Religious Idiom and the African American Novel, 1952-1998 by
Examines the creative re-visioning and reshaping of Judeo-Christian idiom and imagery by mid to late 20th century African American novelists
The Sermon and the African American Literary Imagination by
Engages 19th-century African American slave narratives and fiction and five major 20th-century African American novels to argue that the Black sermon functions as the “heroic voice of black America.” It serves as the foundation upon which African American writers engage in a practice similar to Black preachers to create communion between the writer and readership and to release readers from the “tyranny of the everyday.”
African Spirituality in Black Women's Fiction by
Beginning with the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, African Spirituality in Black Women's Fiction traces applications and transformations of African spirituality in black women's writings that culminate in the conscious and deliberate celebration of Africanity in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Faithful Vision: Treatments of the Sacred, Spiritual, and Supernatural in Twentieth-Century African American Fiction (Online) by
Analyzes the treatment of the Bible and the Christian faith in the novels of James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Ishmael Reed, Ellease Southerland, Alice Walker, John Edgar Wideman, and Richard Wright. Defines and employs the term “faithful vision” to encompass the sacred, spiritual, and supernatural agency that accounts for African American suffering, oppression, survival, and salvation.
Goodbye Christ?: Christianity, Masculinity, and the New Negro Renaissance by
Explores how the intersection of race, religion, and gender during the Harlem Renaissance impacted the rhetoric and imagination of prominent African American writers of the early twentieth century.
James Baldwin and the Heavenly City: Prophecy, Apocalypse, and Doubt by
Argues that Baldwin's novels use biblical ideas in partly but not fully secularized ways to express the possible human attainment of a new life embodying a real but undefinable holiness.
Toni Morrison: Memory and Meaning (Online) by
Collection of essays that explores questions of personal memory and scholarly meaning in the works of Toni Morrison. Includes three essays on biblical themes in Part 3: “Her garden was not Eden; it was so much more than that” by Shirley A. Stave, and essays by Katherine Clay Bassard and Justine Tally.
Toni Morrison and the Bible: Contested Intertextualities by
Collection of essays that explores the myriad ways Morrison’s novels engage with the Bible. Includes exposition on The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, and Love.
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