The starting point for "Beyond Douglass" is an institutional paralysis in the study of Early African-American literature. Over the past decade, literary anthologies have codified this tradition through the exemplary figures of Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Fredrick Douglass. Ironically, scholars have continued the valuable work of reclamation, a warrant for new approaches to slave narratives, protest literature, autobiography, poetry, and fiction. The danger, however, is that these more recently presented works will remain texts for the specialist and will neither enter nor modify the newly established canon. This book seeks to be an intervention in this premature canonization, inviting a
The starting point for "Beyond Douglass" is an institutional paralysis in the study of Early African-American literature. Over the past decade, literary anthologies have codified this tradition through the exemplary figures of Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Fredrick Douglass. Ironically, scholars have continued the valuable work of reclamation, a warrant for new approaches to slave narratives, protest literature, autobiography, poetry, and fiction. The danger, however, is that these more recently presented works will remain texts for the specialist and will neither enter nor modify the newly established canon. This book seeks to be an intervention in this premature canonization, inviting a pedagogical communication between teachers of American literature and the specialists focusing on early African-American literature. These essays explore both newly recovered texts and new scholarly approaches, and represent a powerful call to revise what we think we know about this rich vein in American letters.
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Table of Contents
Canon Loading Michael J. Drexler Drexler, Michael J. Ed White White, Ed 1 Self-Encounters: Two Eighteenth-Century Memoirs from Moravian Bethlehem Katherine Faull Faull, Katherine 21 The Eighteenth-Century Black Wor(l)d and Early Writers' Biblical Literacy April Langley Langley, April 55 Anglo-American Continuities of Civic and Religious Thought in the Institutional World of Early Black Writing Phillip M. Richards Richards, Phillip M. 69 Early African-American Literature? Vincent Carretta Carretta, Vincent 91 Early Black Atlantic Writing and the Cultures of Enlightenment Philip Gould Gould, Philip 107 Aspirant Citizenship John Saillant Saillant, John 123 Antebellum African-American Texts beyond Slavery and Race Xiomara Santamarina Santamarina, Xiomara 141 Monuments and Careers: Teaching William Wells Brown, Martin Delany, and Their Contemporaries Robert S. Levine Levine, Robert S. 155 Index 175
Overview
The starting point for "Beyond Douglass" is an institutional paralysis in the study of Early African-American literature. Over the past decade, literary anthologies have codified this tradition through the exemplary figures of Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Fredrick Douglass. Ironically, scholars have continued the valuable work of reclamation, a warrant for new approaches to slave narratives, protest literature, autobiography, poetry, and fiction. The danger, however, is that these more recently presented works will remain texts for the specialist and will neither enter nor modify the newly established canon. This book seeks to be an intervention in this premature canonization, inviting a