Calls and Responses

by Ryan, Tim A.

• ISBN13: 9780807133224
• ISBN10: 0807133221
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

Winner of the 2008 Jules and Frances Landry Award, this comprehensive, groundbreaking study explores how American novelists since World War I have imagined the institution of slavery and the experience of those involved in it. Complicating the common assumption that authentic black-authored fiction about slavery is starkly opposed to the traditional, racist fiction (and history) created by whites, the author suggests that discourses about American slavery are and always have been defined by connections rather than disjunctions. Ryan contends that African American writers didn't merely reject and move beyond traditional portrayals of the black past but rather actively engaged in a dynamic dialogue with white-authored versions of slavery and existing historiographical debates. The result is an ongoing cultural conversation that transcends both racial and disciplinary boundaries and is akin to the call-and-response style of African American gospel music.

Author Biography

Tim A. Ryan is an assistant professor of African American literature at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois.

Table of Contents

Calls and responses	p. 1
Designs against Tara : representing slavery in American culture, 1936-1944	p. 20
From Tara to Turner : slavery and slave psychologies in American fiction and history, 1945-1968	p. 63
You shall see how a slave was made a woman : the development of the contemporary novel of slavery, 1976-1987	p. 114
Scarlett and Mammy done gone : complications of the contemporary novel of slavery, 1986-2003	p. 149
Mapping the unrepresentable : slavery fiction in the new millennium	p. 185
Beyond black and white	p. 209
Major historical studies, fiction, drama, films, and TV presentations since 1918 concerning slavery in the United States	p. 215
Notes	p. 227
Works cited	p. 237
Index	p. 249
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