A Companion to African American Literature - Paperback

by Gene Andrew Jarrett (Editor)

Through a series of essays that explore the forms, themes, genres, historical contexts, major authors, and latest critical approaches, A Companion to African American Literature presents a comprehensive chronological overview of African American literature from the eighteenth century to the modern day

• Examines African American literature from its earliest origins, through the rise of antislavery literature in the decades leading into the Civil War, to the modern development of contemporary African American cultural media, literary aesthetics, and political ideologies
• Addresses the latest critical and scholarly approaches to African American literature
• Features essays by leading established literary scholars as well as newer voices

Back Jacket

A Companion to African American Literature presents a comprehensive overview of the field from the eighteenth century to the present day. Embracing the full range of African American literature, essays explore forms, themes, genres, historical contexts, and major authors, and present the latest critical approaches. Featuring contributions from both established and rising scholars, whose in-depth essays cover the Black Atlantic and the New World literatures of the African Diaspora in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; the rise of antislavery literature and the African American novel in the decades leading into the Civil War; the evolution of African American literary genres and political thought between the Civil War and World War One; the modern development of African American cultural media, literary aesthetics, and political ideologies between the World Wars; and the literary and methodological complexities of contemporary African American literature, A Companion to African American Literature offers invaluable insights for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of one of America's richest and most complex literary traditions.

Author Biography

Gene Andrew Jarrett is Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Boston University. He is the author of Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature (2011) and Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature (2007), and the editor or co-editor of several volumes and collections of African American literature and literary criticism.