Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon

392 Pages·2013·4.17 MB·English

by  Lovalerie King

Contemporary
af ri Can
ameri Can
Literature
Blacks in the Diaspora
FounDing eDitors
Darlene clark hine
John Mccluskey, Jr.
David Barry gaspar
eDitors
herman l. Bennett
kim D. Butler
Judith a. Byfield
tracy sharpley- Whiting
Indiana University Press
Bloomington & Indianapolis
EditEd by
LovaLEriE King and
ShirLEy Moody- t urnEr
Contemporary
af ri Can
ameriCan
Literature
thE Living Canon
Indiana University Press
Bloomington & Indianapolis
This book is a publication of Manufactured in the
united states of america
indiana university press library of congress cataloging-in-
office of scholarly publishing publication Data
herman B Wells library 350
1320 e. 10th st. contemporary african american
Bloomington, in 47405 literature : the living canon / edited
by lovalerie king and shirley Moody-
iupress.indiana.edu turner.
pages cm
Telephone orders 800- 842- 6796 includes bibliographical references and
Fax orders 812- 855- 7931 index.
isBn 978-0-253-00625-7 (cloth : alk.
© 2013 by indiana university press paper) — isBn 978-0-253-00626-4
all rights reserved (pbk. : alk. paper) — isBn 978-0-253-
00697-4 (ebook) 1. american literature—
no part of this book may be reproduced african american authors—history
or utilized in any form or by any means, and criticism. 2. african americans—
electronic or mechanical, in clud ing intellectual life. 3. african americans in
photocopying and recording, or by any literature. i. king, lovalerie, editor of
information storage and retrieval system, compilation. ii. Moody-turner, shirley,
without permission in writing from the editor of compilation.
publisher. The association of american ps153.n5c644 2013
university presses’ resolution on permis- 810.9’896073—dc23
sions constitutes the only exception to 2013016443
this prohibition.
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
The paper used in this publication
meets the minimum requirements of
the ameri can national standard for
information sciences—permanence
of paper for printed library Materials,
ansi Z39.48- 1992.
This volume is dedicated to the Ancestors
and to those scholars, authors, and
author/scholars who continue to
carry the tradition forward.

Contents
Foreword \ Mat Johnson ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction \ Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody- Turner 1
Part 1. Politics of Pub lish ing, Pedagogy, and Readership
1 The point of entanglement: Modernism, Diaspora,
and toni Morrison’s Love \ Houston A. Baker, Jr. 17
2 “The historical Burden That only oprah can Bear”:
af ri can ameri can satirists and the state of
the literature \ Darryl Dickson- Carr 41
3 Black is gold: af ri can ameri can literature, critical literacy,
and twenty- First- century pedagogies \ Maryemma Graham 55
4 hip hop (feat. Women Writers): reimagining Black Women
and agency through hip hop Fiction \ Eve Dunbar 91
5 street literature and the Mode of spectacular Writing:
popular Fiction between sensationalism, education,
politics, and entertainment \ Kristina Graaff 113
Part 2. Alternative Genealogies
6 portrait of the artist as a Young slave: Visual artistry as agency
in the contemporary narrative of slavery \ Evie Shockley 137
7 Variations on the Theme: Black Family, nationhood,
lesbianism, and sadomasochistic Desire in Marci Blackman’s
Po Man’s Child \ Carmen Phelps 155
8 Bad Brother Man: Black Folk Fig ure narratives in comics \
James Braxton Peterson 168
viii · Contents
Part 3. Beyond Authenticity
9 sampling the sonics of sex (Funk) in paul Beatty’s Slumberland \
L. H. Stallings 189
10 post- integration Blues: Black geeks and afro- Diasporic
humanism \ Alexander G. Weheliye 213
11 The crisis of authenticity in contemporary af ri can ameri can
literature \ Richard Schur 235
12 someday We’ll all Be Free: con sid er ing post- oppression Fiction \
Martha Southgate 255
Part 4. Peda gogic al Approaches and Implications
13 untangling history, Dismantling Fear: teaching tayari Jones’s
Leaving Atlanta \ Trudier Harris 269
14 reading kyle Baker’s Nat Turner with a group of collegiate Black
Men \ Howard Rambsy II 285
15 toward the Theoretical practice of conceptual liberation:
using an af ri cana studies approach to reading af ri can ameri can
literary texts \ Greg Carr and Dana A. Williams 302
Afterword \ Alice Randall 329
Annotated Bibliography \ Pia Deas and David F. Green, Jr. 333
Contributors 351
Index 359
Foreword
Mat Johnson
There is a fanpage on the popu lar networking site Facebook entitled “i
hate reading.” it’s a very succinct title, and there’s not much else to the
page. if you hate reading, you simply click the button that says “like,”
and you can become a “Fan” and proudly show your unabashed support
for illiteracy. as of this writing, the site has over 450,000 members, all of
whom presumably overcame the irony of having to read the page in the
first place.
as a writer, i am of course disheartened by this lambasting of the
written word. But as a human, i understand. Books are hard. My own
art, the novel, is among the hardest. novels are incomplete in their pro-
cess, forcing the reader to use her or his imagination to bring the text
to life. tV shows don’t demand that; they do the work for you. Films as
well, with millions of dollars spent to bring the creativity to life. people
work hard, come home exhausted, they want the release, they want es-
cape, they want someone else to carry the load. it’s no wonder every time
i write a book someone says to me, “Maybe they’ll turn it into a movie.”
That knowledge keeps me from attacking them.
so why do novels matter? in this era of visual media, when one film’s
advertising budget alone can dwarf the incomes of entire pub lish ing
houses, what does the novel hope to offer? i ask myself this quite of en. i
ask it every time i happen upon a beautiful book that’s been ignored, or
as i struggle myself with the realities of trying to maintain my life as a
writer. i’m asked this too, by writing students struggling to understand if
the art they’re dedicating their lives to still has a place in the world. and
i usually answer them with one word. Lolita.
ix