The Landscapes of African American Short Stories, 1887 – 2014 By
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The Landscapes of African American Short Stories, 1887 – 2014 By Kenton Rambsy 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. ________________________________ Chairperson, Maryemma Graham ________________________________ William J. Harris ________________________________ Mary Jo Reiff ________________________________ Tony Bolden ________________________________ Randal Jelks Date Defended: April 14, 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Kenton Rambsy certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Mapping African American Short Stories, 1899- 2014 ________________________________ Chairperson Maryemma Graham Date approved: May 8, 2015 ii Abstract: My dissertation addresses the dearth of scholarship on short stories by using quantitative data and text-mining software to explain how the repeated inclusion of short fiction by Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker, and Edward P. Jones in anthologies across decades shapes the contours of African American literary tradition. My research also reveals why specific geographic locations have become, over time, fundamental to the study of African American literature. iii Acknowledgements: My parents have been pillars of support throughout my entire life, but especially during my graduate school career. For that, I thank them for always pushing me to my limits in intellectual thought. My siblings, my brother, sister, and sister-in-law, have all been role models and social guides along my academic journey. Thank you for always inspiring me by example. My extended family and close friends (past and present) have been beneficial to academic success by offering me encouragement or helping me work through complex ideas. Thank you all for your support. On a summer day in June 2009, I met Maryemma Graham as a Schomburg-Mellon Fellow in Harlem, New York. Little did I know she would play a major role in my maturation process as a scholar. I am grateful for you always encouraging me to take the “road less traveled” and serving as a phenomenal dissertation chair and personal mentor. I would like to thank my dissertation committee, also known as my dream team— William Harris, Mary Jo Reiff, Tony Bolden, and Randall Jelks. The scholarly and professional guidance has made all of the difference. My “unofficial-official” committee member, Jerry W. Ward, Jr., I would also like to thank Lydia Ash, Lori Whitten, and Robin Holladay of the English Department, Brian Rosenblum and the Institute for Research in the Digital Humanities, the English Department at the University of Kansas, and the Hall Center for the Humanities. The financial support, professional opportunities, and personal encouragement I received from the various people connected to these people helped facilitate my academic growth. iv Table of Contents Introduction Short Stories, Anthologies, and Literary Geo-Tagging… P. 1 Chapter 1—The Transmission of African American Short Stories, 1887- 2014… P. 15 Chapter 2—The South as Place in Short Fiction: A Digital Thematic Survey … P. 53 Chapter 3—New York State of Mind: Text-Mining Urban Environments … P. 83 Chapter 4—Edward P. Jones and Literary Geotagging … P 109 Conclusion… P. 127 Appendix I … P 130 Bibliography… P 141 v In Toni Morrison’s 1977 novel Song of Solomon, Guitar Baines declares to the story’s protagonist, “Goddamn, Milk, I do believe my whole life’s geography” (114). Guitar’s comments underscore the historical importance of geography in African American life and history. Whether artistic movements such as the Harlem Renaissance or political protests such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, geography has the ability to dictate black people’s interactions with their environments. However, to what extent does geography shape engagements with African American literature? Also, in what manner does geography influence circulation practices? The answers to these questions may suggest that geography plays a significant role in the circulation of black writing. The Landscapes of African American Short Stories, 1887 – 2014 addresses the dearth of scholarship on short stories, especially those by African American authors, by connecting two elements: circulation of texts and literary geographies. I am especially interested in the use to which new technologies can be put in answering questions about the impact of the short story on the African American literary tradition. What can a focus on the most frequently anthologized short stories—by Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, and Alice Walker, referred to here as the Big Seven—tell us? In my project, I ask one central question: How has the frequent circulation of short stories by the Big Seven in the last forty years collectively made specific locales central to African American literary representations? I answer this question by focusing on representations of place descriptions in selected short stories in order to highlight the importance of settings and geographic spaces. I employ “geocoding” as a method for examining racial-spatial dimensions of African American culture. My term “Literary geo-tagging.” therefore, refers to the manner in which a writer constructs his or her environment with geographical markers: specific landmarks, 1 street names, neighborhoods as well as regional dialects. Secondarily, what implications does this geographical diversity have for the speech of those characters associated with the various regions. In this context, literary geo-tagging also refers to the cultural and racial distinctions writers employ as their characters navigate different social terrains. Ultimately, literary geo- tagging demonstrates the ways in which authors participate in location identification processes that position characters and plots in relation to the ideas their stories explore. The Landscapes of African American Short Stories, 1887 – 2014 is not a thematic analysis of short stories. Instead, I am interested in identifying trends and recurring patterns in the selected anthologized black short fiction. As an interdisciplinary study, this study calls for the use of quantitative data and text-mining software to illuminate the significance of geography and the predictive function of core texts. Quantifying information about the Big Seven reveals those factors that define the specific practices black short story writers most consistently employ. Based on the compiled biographical data for the Big Seven, each writer was between the age of 29 and 35 at the time a short story appeared in a national, widely circulating publication. Except for Baldwin and Bambara, the publication of their short stories launched the careers that led to publication of their first novels. Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grapevine” in the 1887 issue of The Atlantic, for example, helped him to broker a book contract with Houghton Mifflin. In 1925, Alain Locke selected Hurston’s “Spunk” for inclusion in the New Negro anthology, raising Hurston’s visibility among financial supporters that made possible the publication of her first and best known novel. Wright’s publication of Uncle Tom’s Children in 1938 earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship, essential to the completion of Native Son. Horizon published Ellison’s “Battle Royal” in 1947, the short story that became part of his award-winning novel Invisible Man. After editing the anthology, The Black Woman in 1970, Toni Cade Bambara’s early short 2 stories caught the attention of Random House editors who published a series of short stories by Bambara between 1972 and 1977. Generally, if a writer did not have a distinguished short story circulating in a publication with broad readership before 1975, he or she is less likely to appear in today’s anthologies. In terms of short stories, editorial decisions by anthologists play a major role in the locations in the South and New York City as the most popular short story settings. Even though authors set their stories in New Orleans, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, the South overall and New York are dominant locations, and, therefore, provide a focus for this study. Mississippi, Florida, and New York represent the most common place markers for some of our most important African American short story writers. While African American migration remains a significant subject in literary and historical scholarship, geography itself has not been a major feature of literary analysis. Yet attention to geography reveals black writers attempts to address place-specific dimensions of history, race, and culture. Soja’s “thirdspace” expands conceptions of geography by capturing “what is actually a constantly shifting and changing milieu of ideas, events, appearances, and meanings” that shapes a person or group of people’s interactions with a specific region or location (56). His multilayered view of “space” clarifies the manner in which economics and history shape a person’s impressions of a particular geographic location and underscores the manner in which people and institutions have always worked together as “active participants in the social construction of our embracing spatialities” (1). To provide a theoretical framework for this study, I also make use of Thadious Davis’s term “social geographies.” According to Davis, “spatial organization and racialized voices” allow for “a reformulation of marginalization