Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS Volume 1 Edited by Yolanda Williams Page GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London CONTENTS Preface xiii Joanne Braxton (1950-) Tanya N. Clark 46 List of Authors by Genre XV Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) Chronological List of Authors xix Bridget Harris Tsemo 49 Volume 1 Linda Beatrice Brown (1939-) Teresa Clark Caruso 56 Elizabeth Laura Adams (1909-1982) Annie Louise Burton Hermine Pinson 1 (1858-1910) Gabriel A. Briggs 59 Octavia Victoria Rogers Albert (1853-1889) Olivia Ward Bush-Banks (1869-1944) Iva Balic 7 Susan M. Stone 61 Clarissa Minnie Thompson Octavia Butler (1947-2006) Allen (?-?) Keren Omry 64 Elizabeth Marsden 9 Jeannette Franklin Caines Mignon Holland Anderson (1938-2004) (1945-) Eric Sterling 71 Teresa Clark Caruso 11 Bebe Moore Campbell (1950- ) Maya Angelou (1928-) Tenille Brown 74 Joi Carr 13 Barbara Chase-Riboud (1939-) Tina McElroy Ansa (1949- ) Ginette Curry 76 Tarshia L. Stanley 19 Alice Childress (1916-1994) Doris Jean Austin (1949-1994) Carol Bunch Davis 79 Imani Lillie B. Fryar 23 Barbara T. Christian Nikki Baker (1962-) (1943-2000) Kimberly Downing Braddock 26 • Sharon L. Barnes 85 Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) Pearl T. Cleage (1948- ) Rochelle Spencer 28 Adrienne Cassel 88 Gwendolyn Bennett (1902-1981) Michelle Cliff (1946-) Sue E. Barker 35 Lopamudra Basu 92 Marita Bonner (1898-1971) Lucille Clifton (1936-) Sophie Blanch 39 Patricia Kennedy Bostian 94 Candy Dawson Boyd (1946- ) Wanda Coleman (1946-) Bennie P. Robinson 43 Terri Jackson Wallace 101 vin CONTENTS Eugenia W. Collier (1928- ) Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935) T. Jasmine Dawson 103 Denisa E. Chatman-Riley 174 Kathleen Conwell Collins Grace Edwards-Yearwood (1942-1988) (1934?-) Chandra Tyler Mountain 106 Jasmin J. Vann 180 Anna Julia Hayward Cooper Zilpha Elaw (17907-1846?) (1858-1964) Nancy Kang 182 Gloria A. Shearin 112 Mari Evans (1923-) J. California Cooper (?- ) Jessica Allen 186 Adrienne Carthon 116 Sarah Webster Fabio JayneCortez(1936-) (1928-1979) Ruth Blandon 121 Richard A. Iadonisi 191 Margaret Esse Danner Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882-1961 (1910-1984) Joy R. Myree-Mainor 193 Claire Taft 127 Carolyn Ferrell (1962-) Edwidge Danticat (1969-) Alex Feerst 200 Jana Evans Braziel 132 Julia Fields (1938-) Doris Davenport (1949-) Jacqueline Imani Bryant 202 Denise R. Shaw 141 Julia A. J. Foote (1823-1900) Angela Y. Davis (1944- ) Ann Beebe 204 Deirdre Osborne 145 Patrice Gaines (1949-) Lucy Delaney (1830-1890) Amanda J. Davis 207 Dave Yost 149 Patricia Joann Gibson (1951- ) Toi(Nette) Marie Derricotte Sarah Estes Graham 209 (1941-) Mercedes Gilbert (1889-1952) Karen S. Sloan 151 Mario David Azikwe 211 Alexis De Veaux (1948- ) Bennie P. Robinson 155 Nikki Giovanni (1943-) Jane M. Barstow 213 Edwina Streeter Dixon (1907-2002) Marita Golden (1950-) 218 Kevin L. Cole and DaMaris Hill Katherine Madison 161 Jewelle Gomez (1948-) Josie A. Brown-Rose Rita Dove (1952-) 223 Laura Madeline Wiseman 163 Eloise Greenfield (1929-) Elissa Gershowitz Kate Drumgoold 227 (18587-1898) Angelina Weld Grimke Karen S. Sloan 169 (1880-1958) Gloria A. Shearin 229 Shirley Graham DuBois (1896-1977) Rosa Guy (1925-) Rebecca Walsh 171 Julie Ellam 235 CONTENTS IX Beverly Guy-Sheftall (1946-) Rebecca Cox Jackson Lynnell Thomas 237 (1795-1871) Joshunda Sanders 303 Madame Emma Azalia Smith Hackley (1867-1922) Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897) Lisa Pertillar Brevard 241 Mary McCartin Wearn 305 Virginia Hamilton (1936-2002) Amelia E. Johnson (1858-1922) Myisha Priest 244 Sathyaraj Venkatesan 309 Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) Georgia Douglas Johnson Kelly O. Secovnie 251 (1877-1966) Maria J. Rice 312 Joyce Hansen (1942-) Dorsia Smith 259 Helen Johnson (1906-1995) Wendy Wagner 317 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) Gayl Jones (1949-) Valerie Palmer-Mehta 261 Helen Doss 321 Juanita Harrison (1887-197?) June Jordan (1936-2002) Sarah Boslaugh 264 Roy Perez 326 Safiya Henderson-Holmes Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1950-2001) (1818-1907) Shamika Ann Mitchell 266 Regina V. Jones 331 Carolivia Herron (1947-) Adrienne Kennedy (1931-) Rachelle D. Washington 268 Nita N.Kumar 334 Frenchy Jolene Hodges Jamaica Kincaid (1949-) (1940-) Maria Mikolchak 341 Katarzyna Iwona Jakubiak 271 Volume 2 bell hooks (1952-) Peggy J. Huey 273 Pinkie Gordon Lane (1923- ) Julia Marek Ponce 347 Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (Sara A. Allen) (1859-1930) NellaLarsen (1891-1964) Jeehyun Lim 278 Frank A. Salamone 350 Zora Neale Hurston Kristin Hunter Lattany (1931- ) (1891-1960) David M. Jones 355 Warren J. Carson 283 Andrea Lee (1953-) Angela Jackson (1951-) Barbara Boswell 360 Judy Massey Dozier 292 Helene Elaine Lee (1959- ) Elaine Jackson (1943-) Lena Marie Ampadu 364 Raymond Janifer 296 Jarena Lee (1783-7) Mae Jackson (1946-) Christopher J. Anderson 366 Heather Hoffman Jordan 299 Audre Geraldine Lorde Mattie Jane Jackson (1843-7) (1934-1992) Tabitha Adams Morgan 301 Heejung Cha 369.
Recommended publications
  • Ethical Engagement
    ETHICAL ENGAGEMENT: CRITICAL STRATEGIES FOR APPROACHING AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC FICTION BY Sandra Cox Copyright 2011 Submitted to the graduate degree program in English and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Dr. Marta Caminero-Santangelo, Chairperson Dr. Doreen Fowler Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald Dr. Giselle Anatol Dr. Ann Schofield Date Accepted April 18, 2011 ii The Dissertation Committee for Sandra Cox certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: ETHICAL ENGAGEMENT: CRITICAL STRATEGIES FOR APPROACHING AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC FICTION Committee: Dr. Marta Caminero-Santangelo, Chairperson Dr. Doreen Fowler Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald Dr. Giselle Anatol Dr. Ann Schofield Date Accepted April 18, 2011 iii Dissertation Abstract: Critics of American literature need ways to ethically interpret ethnic difference, particularly in analyses of texts that memorialize collective experiences wherein that difference is a justification for large-scale atrocity. By examining fictionalized autoethnographies—narratives wherein the author writes to represent his or her own ethnic group as a collective identity in crisis—this dissertation interrogates audiences‘ responses and authors‘ impetus for reading and producing novels that testify to experiences of cultural trauma. The first chapter synthesizes some critical strategies specific to autoethnographic fiction; the final three chapters posit a series of textual applications of those strategies. Each textual application demonstrates that outsider readers and critics can treat testimonial literatures with respect and compassion while still analyzing them critically. In the second chapter, an explication of the representations of African American women‘s experiences with the cultural trauma of slavery is brought to bear upon analyses of Toni Morrison‘s A Mercy (2009) and Alice Walker‘s Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart (2003).
    [Show full text]
  • To View/Download the AP List of Free Response Titles
    Titles from Open Response Questions* Updated from an original list by Norma J. Wilkerson. Works referred to on the AP Literature exams since 1971 (specific years in parentheses) Please note that only authors were recommended in early years, not specific titles.. A Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner (76, 00, 10, 12) Adam Bede by George Eliot (06) The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (13) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (80, 82, 85, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 05, 06, 07, 08, 11, 13) The Aeneid by Virgil (06) Agnes of God by John Pielmeier (00) The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (97, 02, 03, 08, 12, 14) Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (00, 04, 08) All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (00, 02, 04, 07, 08, 09, 11) All My Sons by Arthur Miller (85, 90) All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (95, 96, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11, 13) America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan (95) An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (81, 82, 95, 03) American Pastoral by Philip Roth (09) The American by Henry James (05, 07, 10) Angels in America by Tony Kushner (09) Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (10) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (80, 91, 99, 03, 04, 06, 08, 09, 16) Another Country by James Baldwin (95, 10, 12) Antigone by Sophocles (79, 80, 90, 94, 99, 03, 05, 09, 11, 14) Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (80, 91) Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (94) Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer (76) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (78, 89, 90, 94, 01, 04, 06, 07, 09) As You Like It by William Shakespeare (92 05, 06, 10, 16) Atonement by Ian McEwan (07, 11, 13, 16) Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson (02, 05) The Awakening by Kate Chopin (87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 99, 02, 04, 07, 09, 11, 14) B “The Bear” by William Faulkner (94, 06) Beloved by Toni Morrison (90, 99, 01, 03, 05, 07, 09, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16) A Bend in the River by V.
    [Show full text]
  • LOCATING the IDEAL HOMELAND TN the LITERATURE of EDWIDGE DANTICAT by JULIANE OKOT BITEK B.F.A., the University of British Columb
    LOCATING THE IDEAL HOMELAND TN THE LITERATURE OF EDWIDGE DANTICAT by JULIANE OKOT BITEK B.F.A., The University of British Columbia, 1995 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULIFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) May2009 © Juliane Okot Bitek, 2009 ABSTRACT Edwidge Danticat, who has lived most of her life in the United States, retains a strong link with Haiti and primarily writes about the Haitian experience inside and outside the country. For Danticat, the ‘ideal homeland’ is a psychic space where she can be Haitian, American, and belong to both countries. Danticat’s aspiration and position as one who can make claim to both Haiti and the United States somewhat supports Stuart Hall’s notion of cultural identity as a fluid entity and an identity that is becoming and is, not one that is static and was. However, Danticat locates her ‘ideal homeland’ within the Haitian Dyaspora, as a social construct that includes all the people of the Haitian descent in the diaspora, whatever their countries of citizenship. This ideal homeland is an emotional and literary space for continued expression and creation of Haitian identity, history and culture. It is not a geographical space and as such, requires that membership in it engage through text. This paper investigates ways in which Danticat expresses the ideal homeland in her fiction and nonfiction works. I use Dionne Brand, Kamau Brathwaite, Edward Soja and Judith Lewis Herman among others, as theorists to discover this ideal homeland in order to show that Danticat, like many diasporic writers, is actively engaged in locating for themselves where they can engage in their work as they create new communities and take charge of how they tell their stories and how they identify themselves.
    [Show full text]
  • Narratives of Return: the Contemporary Caribbean Woman Writer and the Quest for Home
    1 Narratives of Return: The Contemporary Caribbean Woman Writer and the Quest for Home Rachel Grace Thompson Goldsmiths College, University of London PhD English and Comparative Literature 2 I hereby declare that all of the work presented in this thesis is my own. Rachel Grace Thompson. August 2014. 3 Acknowledgements To Phill, who has been there every step of this process over the past four years. For your constancy, your support, and your hugs. For listening to me and encouraging me. And for your patience and understanding through frequent tears of frustration and despair. Thank you. To my parents, who first instilled, then encouraged and nurtured a life-long love of literature. For everything from those first bedtime stories to the weekly Saturday morning trips to Fairwater library. For lending me your library cards when I had filled up my own. For taking me to Pembroke Dock when I had spent the summer reading my way through the books in Tenby. For nurturing the bookworm in me, reading to me, and with me. For your unwavering belief in my academic potential, for pushing and challenging me. For taking so much pride in each and every one of my achievements, no matter how large or small. For everything you have taught me and for the endless opportunities you have given me. And for your continuing emotional and financial support, without which none of this would have been possible. Words will never fully express my gratitude. To mum and dad, thank you. 4 Abstract This thesis investigates how diasporic Caribbean women writers use the vehicle of the novel to effect a ‘writing back’ to the Caribbean home through what I propose to consider as a specific sub- genre of Caribbean literature: ‘narratives of return’.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading and Writing As Transformative Action in Maria Irene Fornes’ and Adrienne Kennedy’S Plays
    READING AND WRITING AS TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION IN MARIA IRENE FORNES’ AND ADRIENNE KENNEDY’S PLAYS by Insoo Lee B.A. in English Literature, Seoul National University, 1995 B.F.A.in Playwriting, Korea National University of Arts, 2001 M.A. in Theatre Art, Miami University, Ohio, 2004 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Dietrich School of Arts and Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCE This dissertation was presented by Insoo Lee It was defended on April 16, 2012 and approved by Kathleen E. George, PhD, Professor Attilio Favorini, PhD, Professor Bruce McConachie, PhD, Professor Susan Z. Andrade, PhD, Associate Professor Dissertation Advisor: Kathleen E. George, PhD, Professor ii Copyright © by Insoo Lee 2012 iii READING AND WRITING AS TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION IN MARIA IRENE FORNES’ AND ADRIENNE KENNEDY’S PLAYS Insoo Lee, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation examines Maria Irene Fornes’ and Adrienne Kennedy’s plays, focusing on the female characters’ act of reading and writing on stage. Usually, reading and writing on stage are considered to be passive and static, but in the two playwrights’ works, they are used as an effective plot device that moves the drama forward and as willful efforts by the female characters to develop their sense of identities. Furthermore, in contrast to the usual perception of reading and writing as intellectual processes, Fornes and Kennedy depict these acts as intensely physical and sensual. Julia Kristeva’s and Hélène Cixous’ poststructuralist psychoanalytic theories of language and female sexuality, and Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of writing the body are the major theoretical framework within which I explore the two playwrights’ works.
    [Show full text]
  • Woman As a Category / New Woman Hybridity
    WiN: The EAAS Women’s Network Journal Issue 1 (2018) The Affective Aesthetics of Transnational Feminism Silvia Schultermandl, Katharina Gerund, and Anja Mrak ABSTRACT: This review essay offers a consideration of affect and aesthetics in transnational feminism writing. We first discuss the general marginalization of aesthetics in selected canonical texts of transnational feminist theory, seen mostly as the exclusion of texts that do not adhere to the established tenets of academic writing, as well as the lack of interest in the closer examination of the features of transnational feminist aesthetic and its political dimensions. In proposing a more comprehensive alternative, we draw on the current “re-turn towards aesthetics” and especially on Rita Felski’s work in this context. This approach works against a “hermeneutics of suspicion” in literary analyses and re-directs scholarly attention from the hidden messages and political contexts of a literary work to its aesthetic qualities and distinctly literary properties. While proponents of these movements are not necessarily interested in the political potential of their theories, scholars in transnational feminism like Samantha Pinto have shown the congruency of aesthetic and political interests in the study of literary texts. Extending Felski’s and Pinto’s respective projects into an approach to literary aesthetics more oriented toward transnational feminism on the one hand and less exclusively interested in formalist experimentation on the other, we propose the concept of affective aesthetics. It productively complicates recent theories of literary aesthetics and makes them applicable to a diverse range of texts. We exemplarily consider the affective dimensions of aesthetic strategies in works by Christina Sharpe, Sara Ahmed, bell hooks, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who promote the idea of feminism as an everyday practice through aesthetically rendered texts that foster a personal and intimate link between the writer, text, and the reader.
    [Show full text]
  • Here May Is Not Rap Be Music D in Almost Every Major Language,Excerpted Including Pages Mandarin
    ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT ed or printed. Edited by istribut Verner D. Mitchell Cynthia Davis an uncorrected page proof and may not be d Excerpted pages for advance review purposes only. All rights reserved. This is ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London 18_985_Mitchell.indb 3 2/25/19 2:34 PM ed or printed. Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 istribut www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London, SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mitchell, Verner D., 1957– author. | Davis, Cynthia, 1946– author. Title: Encyclopedia of the Black Arts Movement / Verner D. Mitchell, Cynthia Davis. Description: Lanhaman : uncorrectedRowman & Littlefield, page proof [2019] and | Includes may not bibliographical be d references and index. Identifiers:Excerpted LCCN 2018053986pages for advance(print) | LCCN review 2018058007 purposes (ebook) only. | AllISBN rights reserved. 9781538101469This is (electronic) | ISBN 9781538101452 | ISBN 9781538101452 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Black Arts movement—Encyclopedias. Classification: LCC NX512.3.A35 (ebook) | LCC NX512.3.A35 M58 2019 (print) | DDC 700.89/96073—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053986 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
    [Show full text]
  • Edwidge Danticat
    UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND PRESENTS Edwidge Danticat Create Dangerously UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND SCHNEEBECK CONCERT HALL MARCH 31, 2015 | 8 P.M. Edwidge Danticat Edwidge Danticat has been writing since she was 9 years old. When she was very young, her parents immigrated to New York from Port-au- Prince, Haiti, leaving her behind to be raised by family, until she joined them in Brooklyn at the age of 12. Memories from those formative years in Haiti remain vivid to this day, and the love of Haiti and all things Haitian that Danticat developed as a child has deeply influenced her writing. After earning a bachelor’s degree in French literature from Barnard College, Danticat pursued a Master of Fine Arts degree at Brown University, where, as her thesis, she wrote her first novel,Breath, Eyes, Memory, telling the story of four generations of Haitian women who overcome poverty and powerlessness. Danticat published her second book, Krik? Krak! at the age of 26, and became the youngest finalist ever for the National Book Award. The collection of short stories paints portraits of Haiti and Haitian Americans before democracy came to that nation. In an interview with NPR, she explained that the book was an effort “to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up … poor people, who had extraordinary dreams, but also very amazing obstacles.” The title for the collection comes from the Haitian tradition of a storyteller calling out for an audience (“Krik?”), and willing listeners gathering around and answering (“Krak!”). A natural storyteller, Danticat has written numerous books and essays, and edited multiple anthologies.
    [Show full text]
  • Dr Strangelove Or How I Learned to Read Kubrick's
    DR STRANGELOVE OR HOW I LEARNED TO READ KUBRICK’S CONCEPTUAL UNIVERSE Laura Torrado Mariñas Universidade de Vigo Abstract Resumen The present paper intends to Este trabajo pretende explorar la explore Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove or película de Kubrick Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in light of his using a Love the Bomb, teniendo en cuenta una number of creative devices and some serie de convenciones creativas y features, such as the use of symmetry formales, como el uso de la simetría o de and lightning together with the la iluminación, así como la fascinación fascination with human psychology con la psicología humana y sus and its possibilities, which will be later posibilidades. Dichas convenciones explored and fully implemented in his aparecerán de nuevo plenamente more successful films, usually better desarrolladas en sus películas más considered by critics. Therefore, I will conocidas, mejor consideradas por la argue that some of the much- crítica. Por lo tanto, intentaré exponer acclaimed features of his better-known cómo algunas características de esas productions, such as the quest for producciones posteriores, tales como la humanity that will be developed in búsqueda de la humanidad que se 2001 or the preoccupation with double reflejará en 2001 o la preocupación que morals and human morality in general se mostrará en Eyes Wide Shut por la that will be put forward in Eyes Wide moralidad y la doble moral social están Shut are already present in Dr ya presentes en Dr Strangelove, Strangelove, conforming what I will empezando a configurar lo que he refer to as ‘Kubrick’s conceptual llamaré el ‘universo conceptual’ de universe’.
    [Show full text]
  • By LAUREN RENEE
    “PLACING IDENTITY: JOURNEYS TO SELF THROUGH COMMUNAL AUTONOMY IN AFRICAN DIASPORIC WOMEN’S LITERATURE” by LAUREN RENEE CHAMBERS (Under the Direction of Barbara McCaskill) ABSTRACT The construction of identity formation is informed by the myriad places women inhabit, experience, and transgress. Place provides a lens into specific categories of women’s experiences, primarily one’s relation to community. My concept of “communal autonomy” refers to how individuals develop a sense of self and interact within larger communities. My study traces how female characters in Postcolonial and western African diasporic works use place to negotiate conflicting gender expectations as they mature into womanhood in communities and nations that silence their existence. I begin with a discussion of place as community in the autobiography Call Me Woman (1985) by South African author Ellen Kuzwayo, followed by a chapter on Edwidge Danticat’s novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) that explores specific home places in the novel as sources of knowledge Sophie uses to fashion her identity. I then turn to the novel Paradise (1997) by Toni Morrison, to explore the configuration of women as outsiders who function as a community mitigated by place. Finally, I examine a representative twenty- first century voice of African diasporic literature offered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Her novel Purple Hibiscus (2003) presents communities as versions of extended family the protagonist Kambili uses to construct identity. Place calls into question specific institutions and thereby spaces women inhabit in seeking knowledge to define the self. Social institutions such as the home, family, and nation constitute communities through the gendered expectations and behaviors reinforced within these spaces.
    [Show full text]
  • American Book Awards 2004
    BEFORE COLUMBUS FOUNDATION PRESENTS THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS 2004 America was intended to be a place where freedom from discrimination was the means by which equality was achieved. Today, American culture THE is the most diverse ever on the face of this earth. Recognizing literary excel- lence demands a panoramic perspective. A narrow view strictly to the mainstream ignores all the tributaries that feed it. American literature is AMERICAN not one tradition but all traditions. From those who have been here for thousands of years to the most recent immigrants, we are all contributing to American culture. We are all being translated into a new language. BOOK Everyone should know by now that Columbus did not “discover” America. Rather, we are all still discovering America—and we must continue to do AWARDS so. The Before Columbus Foundation was founded in 1976 as a nonprofit educational and service organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature. The goals of BCF are to provide recognition and a wider audience for the wealth of cultural and ethnic diversity that constitutes American writing. BCF has always employed the term “multicultural” not as a description of an aspect of American literature, but as a definition of all American litera- ture. BCF believes that the ingredients of America’s so-called “melting pot” are not only distinct, but integral to the unique constitution of American Culture—the whole comprises the parts. In 1978, the Board of Directors of BCF (authors, editors, and publishers representing the multicultural diversity of American Literature) decided that one of its programs should be a book award that would, for the first time, respect and honor excellence in American literature without restric- tion or bias with regard to race, sex, creed, cultural origin, size of press or ad budget, or even genre.
    [Show full text]
  • Black Theatre Movement PREPRINT
    PREPRINT - Olga Barrios, The Black Theatre Movement in the United States and in South Africa . Valencia: Universitat de València, 2008. 2008 1 To all African people and African descendants and their cultures for having brought enlightenment and inspiration into my life 3 CONTENTS Pág. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………… 6 INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………….. 9 CHAPTER I From the 1950s through the 1980s: A Socio-Political and Historical Account of the United States/South Africa and the Black Theatre Movement…………………. 15 CHAPTER II The Black Theatre Movement: Aesthetics of Self-Affirmation ………………………. 47 CHAPTER III The Black Theatre Movement in the United States. Black Aesthetics: Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins, and Douglas Turner Ward ………………………………. 73 CHAPTER IV The Black Theatre Movement in the United States. Black Women’s Aesthetics: Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy, and Ntozake Shange …………………….. 109 CHAPTER V The Black Theatre Movement in South Africa. Black Consciousness Aesthetics: Matsemala Manaka, Maishe Maponya, Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon …………………………………... 144 CHAPTER VI The Black Theatre Movement in South Africa. Black South African Women’s Voices: Fatima Dike, Gcina Mhlophe and Other Voices ………………………………………. 173 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………… 193 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………… 199 APPENDIX I …………………………………………………………………………… 221 APPENDIX II ………………………………………………………………………….. 225 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this book has been an immeasurable reward, in spite of the hard and critical moments found throughout its completion. The process of this culmination commenced in 1984 when I arrived in the United States to pursue a Masters Degree in African American Studies for which I wish to thank very sincerely the Fulbright Fellowships Committee. I wish to acknowledge the Phi Beta Kappa Award Selection Committee, whose contribution greatly helped solve my financial adversity in the completion of my work.
    [Show full text]