Description
This anthology—the first of its kind—considers the poetry, critical analysis of literature and language, personal narrative, dialogue and political speech by African American, Asian American, and European American authors. Racing and (E)Racing Language explores genres in American literature from the 1850s through the 1990s—from work songs to poetry; from fiction to theater. This book sheds light on many kinds of American language and throws into relief the written word as a shifting common ground—a charged and unpredictable space—where different voices, ethnic groups, and classes exert different kinds and varying degrees of influence on one another.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Safiya Henderson-Holmes and Ellen J. Goldner
Friendly Town, going #1, Safiya Henderson-Holmes
Conversation One, Ellen J. Goldner and Safiya Henderson-Holmes
Part One: Embodying Struggle
Allegories of Exposure: The Heroic Slave and the Heroic Agonistics of Frederick Douglass, Ellen J. Goldner
Friendly Town, being #15, Safiya Henderson-Holmes
"If He Asks You Was I Running You Tell Him I Was Flying, If He Asks You Was I Laughing You Tell Him I Was Crying": Reading John Henry as American History 1870, Gale Patricia Jackson
Laissez-faire, Ted Wilson
Revolutions, Kimiko Halm
Toward an Antiracist Feminism, Kathy Engel
Friendly Town, being #2, Safiya Henderson-Holmes
Part Two: (Un)Balancing Psyches
Passenger Side, Ted Wilson
Literary Blues and the Sacred Text, Arthur Flowers
Metaphors of Race and Psychological Damage in the 1940s American South: The Writings of Lillian Smith, McKay Jenkins
Cheese, Ted Wilson
Blindsided, Kimiko Hahn
Time, Jazz, and the Racial Subject: 134 Conversation Two Lawson Inada's Jazz Poetics, Juliana Chang
Friendly Town, being #10, Safiya Henderson-Holmes
Negotiating the Differences: Anna Deavere Smith 158 Acknowledgements, and Liberation Theater, Kimberly Rae Connor
A Letter to My Soul, Kathy Engel
Now, Kathy Engel
Part Three: Contesting ldentities
A Legacy of Healing: Words, African Americans, and Power, Keith Gilyard
"Nothing Solid": Racial Identity and Identification in Fifth Chinese Daughter and "Wilshire Bus", Wendy Motooka
Passenger Side, Ted Wilson
Literary Blues and the Sacred Text, Arthur Flowers
Prayer for Cora, Kathy Engel
In the Spaces Between the Words: An Interpretation and Performance of Identity, Dominique Parker
White, Safiya Henderson-Holmes
Conversation Two, Safiya Henderson-Holmes and Ellen J. Goldner
About the Author
Ellen J. Goldner is associate professor of English at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. She has contributed to many publications including MELUS and Studies in American Fiction.
Safiya Henderson-Holmes is associate professor of English at Syracuse University where she teaches poetry and creative writing. She is the author of Madness and a Bit of Hope and Daily Bread.
