New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers

LaToya Jefferson-James

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2022
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781978776715
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Women Authors
• Index: Literature

New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers is a collection of critical and pedagogical essays that shed new light on the creative depths of Black women writers. On the one hand, some Black women writers have been heavily anthologized, they have more often than not been restricted by critical metanarratives. Some of their works have been lionized while others remain neglected. On the other hand, some Black women writers have been ignored and understudied. This collection corrects the gaps in our critical thinking about Black women writers by introducing them to a new generation of undergraduate and graduate students, and by presenting pedagogical essays to our colleagues currently working in the field.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface: From the Present to the Afro-Future
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: “You Can’t Run from the Street”: Failed Escapes in Ann Petry’s The Street (1947) and Shay Youngblood’s Black Girl in Paris (2000)
• Chapter 2: You Can’t Shut Me Up: Using Gwendolyn Brooks to Help Students Be Seen and Heard
• Chapter 3: Kathleen Collins: BAM Filmmaker and Fiction Writer
• Chapter 4: Closed in Silence and Clothed in Heteronormativity and the (Anti-)Lesbian Embrace: The Woman’s Plight in Gayl Jones’ Eva’s Man and “The Women”
• Chapter 5: Grange’s Grapple and Brownfield’s Battle: Redefining Manhood in Alice Walker’s Third Life of Grange Copeland
• Chapter 6: Reconnections to Gendered Black Identities in Alice Walker’s The World Will Follow Joy
• Chapter 7: Womanist Freedom Dreams: “Stay on the Battlefield” by Sonia Sanchez and Sweet Honey in the Rock
• Chapter 8: Mothers Incognito in Toni Morrison’s Paradise
• Chapter 9: Love in a Time of Pretentiousness: The Social and Personal Consequences of Romance in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
• Chapter 10: Endless Love: The Evolution of Healers in Octavia Butler’s Patternist Series
• Chapter 11: “I Would Restore What Could Be Restored”: Reclaiming Identity in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling
• Chapter 12: Audre Lorde’s Zami as a Speculative Womanist Guide to Self-Actualization in Octavia Butler’s Dawn
• Chapter 13: Arc of Memory in Natasha Trethewey’s Works
• Chapter 14: Seen and Unseen: The Role of the Venus in N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season
• Chapter 15: Eco-Justice as Womanist Practice in Contemporary Black Women’s Poetry
• Chapter 16: Who Fears Death: Necropolitics, Gender, and Radical Ontology in Africanfuturist Literature
• Conclusion
• Index of Authors and Topics
• About the Editor and Contributors