Encyclopedia of African-American Literature (Online)
by
Wilfred Samuels
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.
The Sermon and the African American Literary Imagination
by
Dolan Hubbard
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.”
Case Studies
African Spirituality in Black Women's Fiction
by
Elizabeth J. West
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.