{"product_id":"designs-of-blackness-9781433179532","title":"Designs of Blackness","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcross more than two centuries Afro-America has created a huge and dazzling variety of literary self-expression. \u003ci\u003eDesigns of Blackness \u003c\/i\u003eprovides less a narrative literary history than, precisely, a series of mappingseach literary-critical and comparative while at the same time offering cultural and historical context. This carefully re-edited version of the 1998 publication opens with an estimation of earliest African American voice in the names of Phillis Wheatley and her contemporaries. It then takes up the huge span of autobiography from Frederick Douglass through to Maya Angelou. Harlem on My Mind, which follows, sets out the literary contours of America's premier black city. Womanism, Alice Walker's presiding term, is given full due in an analysis of fiction from Harriet E. Wilson to Toni Morrison. Richard Wright is approached not as some regulation realist but as a more inward, at times near-surreal, author. Decadology has its risks but the 1940s has rarely been approache\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Lee’s latest scholarly endeavor exhibit his uncanny acumen for literary and cultural critique, \u003ci\u003eDesigns of Blackness\u003c\/i\u003e is not only highly readable, but also impeccably researched…Lee adds his passionate voice to others such as Houston A. Baker, Jr., Henry Louis Gates, Paul Gilroy and Toni Morrison in plotting the complexity of Afro-American literature and culture.”—Sharon L. Moore, \u003ci\u003eYearbook of English Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This erudite compilation sets out to cover no less than the whole of what could be called the African American literary canon.”—\u003ci\u003eEuropean Association for American Studies Newsletter \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A. Robert Lee dazzles us once again with his knowledge of many different literatures. He has set a high standard for those who are bound to one tradition. \u003ci\u003eDesigns of Blackness\u003c\/i\u003e is a very cogent examination of African American literature.”—Ishmael Reed\u003cbr\u003e“All of the chapters benefit from Lee’s sweeping bibliographic range and generosity of response. Only a critic with so much attentive reading to draw on could make his central case regarding the variousness of African American writing, its complexity, its refusal to be reduced to simplicities of pattern or form.”—Kate Fulbrook, \u003ci\u003eJournal of American Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eIntroduction: 25th Anniversary Edition: Perspective and Memoir –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eReclamations: The Early Afro-America of Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammond, Olaudah Equiano and David Walker –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eThe Stance of Self-Representation: African American Life Writing, 1850s–1990s –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eHarlem on My Mind: Fictions of a Black Metropolis from \u003ci\u003eThe New Negro \u003c\/i\u003eto Darryl Pinckney –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eWomanisms: The Novel 1860s–1990s –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eRichard Wright’s Inside Narratives –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eWar and Peace: Writing the Black 1940s –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eBlack Beats: The Signifying Poetry of LeRoi Jones\/Imamu Amiri Baraka, Ted Joans and Bob Kaufman –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eActing Out: The Black Drama of the 1960s, the 1960s of Black Drama –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eEquilibrium Out of Their Chaos: Black Modernism, the Postmodern, and Leon Forrest’s Witherspoon-Bloodworth Trilogy –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eUnder Cover, Under Covers: Performing Race from William Wells Brown to Charles Johnson –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eInto the Twenty-First Century: Fiction’s Continuities and Variations –\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eInto the Twenty-First Century: Poetry’s Voice and Echo –\u003ci\u003e About the Author \u003c\/i\u003e–\u003ci\u003e Index.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Peter Lang Publishing Inc","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51039673123159,"sku":"9781433179532","price":79.11,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781433179532.jpg?v=1750944443","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/designs-of-blackness-9781433179532","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}