The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers

The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers
Author: Calvin C. Hernton
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 306
Release: 1990-10-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

A bold exploration of the controversial role that black women writers have played in the making of African-American literature by the bestselling author of Sex and Racism in America. "Confirms that black women authors are celebrating a literary Fourth of July in America".--Plain Dealer. (Anchor)

Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism

Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism
Author: Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 1991-06-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780253206329

"The essays are provocative and enhance knowledge of Third World women's issues. Highly recommended . . . " —Choice " . . . the book challenges assumptions and pushes historic and geographical boundaries that must be altered if women of all colors are to win the struggles thrust upon us by the 'new world order' of the 1990s." —New Directions for Women "This surely is a book for anyone trying to comprehend the ways sexism fuels racism in a post-colonial, post-Cold War world that remains dangerous for most women." —Cynthia H. Enloe " . . . provocative analyses of the simultaneous oppressions of race, class, gender and sexuality . . . a powerful collection." —Gloria Anzaldúa " . . . propels third world feminist perspectives from the periphery to the cutting edge of feminist theory in the 1990s." —Aihwa Ong " . . . a carefully presented wealth of much-needed information." —Audre Lorde " . . . it is a significant book." —The Bloomsbury Review " . . . excellent . . . The nondoctrinaire approach to the Third World and to feminism in general is refreshing and compelling." —World Literature Today ". . . an excellent collection of essays examining 'Third World' feminism." —The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory These essays document the debates, conflicts, and contradictions among those engaged in developing third world feminist theory and politics. Contributors: Evelyne Accad, M. Jacqui Alexander, Carmen Barroso, Cristina Bruschini, Rey Chow, Juanita Diaz-Cotto, Angela Gilliam, Faye V. Harrison, Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, Barbara Smith, Nayereh Tohidi, Lourdes Torres, Cheryl L. West, & Nellie Wong.

The Coupling Convention : Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction

The Coupling Convention : Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction
Author: Ann duCille Associate Professor of English and African American Studies Wesleyan University
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 222
Release: 1993-10-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0195359119

What does the tradition of marriage mean for people who have historically been deprived of its legal status? Generally thought of as a convention of the white middle class, the marriage plot has received little attention from critics of African-American literature. In this study, Ann duCille uses texts such as Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) to demonstrate that the African-American novel, like its European and Anglo-American counterparts, has developed around the marriage plot--what she calls "the coupling convention." Exploring the relationship between racial ideology and literary and social conventions, duCille uses the coupling convention to trace the historical development of the African-American women's novel. She demonstrates the ways in which black women appropriated this novelistic device as a means of expressing and reclaiming their own identity. More than just a study of the marriage tradition in black women's fiction, however, The Coupling Convention takes up and takes on many different meanings of tradition. It challenges the notion of a single black literary tradition, or of a single black feminist literary canon grounded in specifically black female language and experience, as it explores the ways in which white and black, male and female, mainstream and marginalized "traditions" and canons have influenced and cross-fertilized each other. Much more than a period study, The Coupling Convention spans the period from 1853 to 1948, addressing the vital questions of gender, subjectivity, race, and the canon that inform literary study today. In this original work, duCille offers a new paradigm for reading black women's fiction.

Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo

Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo
Author: Ntozake Shange
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2010-09-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429956666

Ntozake Shange's beloved Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is the story of three sisters and their mother from Charleston, South Carolina. "A jubilant celebration of womanhood—as moving as the moon . . . pure magic." --Kansas City Star Ntozake Shange's beloved Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is the story of three sisters and their mother from Charleston, South Carolina. Sassafrass, the oldest, is a poet and a weaver like her mother before her. Having gone north to college, she is now living with other artists in Los Angeles and trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories and dreams. Cypress, the dancer, leaves home to find new ways of moving in the world. Indigo, the youngest, is still a child of Charleston-"too much of the south in her"-who lives in poetry and has the supreme gift of seeing the obvious magic of the world. Shange's rich and wondrous story of womanhood, art, and passionately-lived lives is written "with such exquisite care and beauty that anybody can relate to her message" (The New York Times).

The Foremother Figure in Early Black Women's Literature

The Foremother Figure in Early Black Women's Literature
Author: Jacqueline K. Bryant
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2018-10-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 042975292X

Originally published in 1999 The Foremother Figure in Early Black Women's Literature looks at how stereotypical foremother figure exists in nineteenth century American literature. The book argues that older black woman portrayed in early black women’s works differs significantly from the older black women portrayed in early white women’s works. The foremother figure, then emerging in early black women’s fiction revises the stereotypical mother figure in early white women’s fiction. In the context of the mulatta heroine the foremother produces minimal language that, through an Afrocentric rhetoric, distinguishes her from the stereotypical mother and thus links her peripheral role and unusual behaviour to cultural continuity and radical uplift.

Studies in Women Writers in English

Studies in Women Writers in English
Author: Rama Kundu
Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Dist
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2005
Genre:
ISBN: 9788126904358

During The Last Few Centuries Women Writers Have Considerably Widened And Deepened The Areas Of Human Experience With Their Sharp, Feminine Perception Of Life, Successfully Transmuted Into Verbal Artifact. The World Body Of Literature In English Would Have Been Much Poorer Today But For The Contribution Of Women Writers. The New Series Studies In Women Writers In English Is A Grateful Acknowledgment Of That Contribution And Public Recognition Of Their Voice.Nineteen Essays Included In This Third Volume Of The Series Cover A Wide Spectrum Of Women Writers Across Space And Time. The Women Writers Discussed In This Volume Include One From Britain Virginia Woolf, The Twentieth Century Stalwart Of British Novel, Who Has Left Her Indelible Mark On The Art Of Fiction As Well As On Women Writers And Thinkers Of The Subsequent Decades; Four From America Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich; Two African-American Talents Toni Morrison, The Nobel Laureate For Literature In 1993, And Alice Walker, The Eminent Black American Woman Writer; And Margaret Clarke From Canada Besides Eight Authors From India. The Discussion On Indian Writers Include Two Articles On Sarojini Naidu, The Illustrious Icon Of Early Indian English Poetry And The Nightingale Of India ; One On The Charming Nostalgic Fiction Of Shashi Deshpande Who Is Compared To Margaret Clarke; One On The Enigmatic Ruth Jhabvala; Two On Two Different And Equally Well-Known Path-Breaking Novels By The Young Talent Githa Hariharan; And One On The Celebrated Recent Autobiography Of Indira Goswami. We Also Get A Glimpse Of Imtiaz Dharkar, Rama Mehta, And Last But Not Least, Anita Desai, In Addition To A Bird S Eye View Of The Enormous Harvest By Indian Women Novelists In The Last Two Decades Of The Last Century.Since Most Of These Authors Are Prescribed In The English Syllabus In The Universities Of India, Both The Teachers And The Students Will Find Them Extremely Useful, And The General Readers Who Are Interested In Literature In English And/Or Women Writers Will Also Find Them Intellectually Stimulating.

African American Literary Theory

African American Literary Theory
Author: Winston Napier
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 745
Release: 2000-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 081475810X

Fifty-one essays by writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as critics and academics such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. examine the central texts and arguments in African American literary theory from the 1920s through the present. Contributions are organized chronologically beginning with the rise of a black aesthetic criticism, through the Black Arts Movement, feminism, structuralism and poststructuralism, queer theory, and cultural studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

The Truth That Never Hurts 25th anniversary edition

The Truth That Never Hurts 25th anniversary edition
Author: Barbara Smith
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2023-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1978839065

Barbara Smith has been doing groundbreaking work since the early 1970s, describing a Black feminism for Black women. Her work in Black women's literary traditions; in examining the sexual politics of the lives of women of color; in representing the lives of Black lesbians and gay men; and in making connections between race, class, sexuality and gender is gathered in The Truth That Never Hurts. This collection contains some of her major essays on Black women's literature, Black lesbian writing, racism in the women's movement, Black-Jewish relations, and homophobia in the Black community. Her forays into these areas ignited dialogue about topics that few other writers were addressing at the time, and which, sadly, remain pertinent to this day. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition, in a beautiful new package, also contains the essays from the original about the 1968 Chicago convention demonstrations; attacks on the NEA; the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Senate hearings; and police brutality against Rodney King and Abner Louima, which, after twenty-five years, still have the urgency they did when they were first written.

The Anatomy of Prejudices

The Anatomy of Prejudices
Author: Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 644
Release: 1996
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9780674031913

Among the many forms of prejudice, Young-Bruehl pays particular attention to four - antisemitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia - which she exposes in their distinctiveness and their similarities.