Cultivation and Catastrophe

The Lyric Ecology of Modern Black Literature

Sonya Posmentier

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781421422664
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Literature

A transformative literary history of black environmental writing.

Winner, William Sanders Scarborough Prize by the Modern Language Association

At the intersection of social and environmental history there has emerged a rich body of Black literary response to natural and agricultural experiences, whether the legacy of enforced agricultural labor or the destruction and displacement brought about by a hurricane. In Cultivation and Catastrophe, Sonya Posmentier uncovers a vivid diasporic tradition of Black environmental writing that responds to the aftermath of plantation slavery, urbanization, and free and forced migrations. While humanist discourses of African American and postcolonial studies often sustain a line between nature and culture, this book instead emphasizes the relationship between them, offering an innovative environmental history of modern black literature.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• introduction
• PART 1: CULTIVATION
• 1 Cultivating the New Negro The Provision Ground in New York
• 2 Cultivating the Nation The Reterritorialization of Black Poetry at Midcentury
• 3 Cultivating the Caribbean “The Star-Apple Kingdom,” Property, and the Plantation
• PART 2: CATASTROPHE
• 4 Continuing Catastrophe The Flood Blues of Sterling Brown and Bessie Smith
• 5 Collecting Catastrophe How the Hurricane Roars in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
• 6 Collecting Culture Hurricane Gilbert’s Lyric Archive
• coda Unnatural Catastrophe The Ecology of Black Optimism in M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index