New Media in Black Women's Autobiography Intrepid Embodiment and Narrative Innovation

by Curtis, Tracy

• ISBN13: 9781137428851
• ISBN10: 1137428856
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-03-05
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

With the rapid expansion of the field of autobiography due to the emergence of new digital media, black American women have excelled at expanding the genre's boundaries as they address disparaging depictions of themselves. Examining novelists, bloggers, and other creators of new media, this study focuses on autobiographies by American black women since 1980, including Audre Lorde, Jill Nelson, and Janet Jackson. New Media in Black Women's Autobiography considers how black women adopt new media forms to assert their place as the rightful creators of their own image. Using 1980 as a starting point, Tracy Curtis explores how black women's insistence on writing embodiment into their narratives addresses and supplants images deployed against them.

Author Biography

Tracy Curtis is Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Her interest in African American autobiography has led to two current endeavors: The Artist Project is about artists' creative processes and the resulting work. On Being Haunted considers shifting roles of black intellectual work in the academy, communities, and broad public contexts.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Whose Tools?: Audre Lorde's Narrative Mastery in The Cancer Journals and Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
2. Naming All These Women: Jill Nelson's Portrayals in Volunteer Slavery and Straight, No Chaser
3. Born Into This Body: Black Women's Use of Buddhism in Autobiographical Narratives
4. Moving on From Control: Janet Jackson's Lot Improves as She Loses the Uniform
5. Down a Dangerous Cyber Street: Black Women's Online Writing
6. At Arms' Length: The Selfie, Public Personae, and Instagram Use in Young Black Women and Adolescents
Conclusion