Black Configurations: The Ethos of "Tradition" from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison, Volume I
Black Configurations is the first volume of a three-volume study that offers a fresh reading of African-American literary history by locating within the literature itself the terms for a revisionary account of black writing, terms pursued along three distinct but interlocking pathways: by charting figurations of tradition among six of the most innovative practitioners of black literary expression from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison (Volume 1); by following the haunting pathways of spectral dialogues between slavery and African-American modernism (Volume 2); and by interrogating interlocking topoi of critique and assertion (naming; facing; voicing) across the history of African-American literary expression. The critical trilogy thereby presents a narrative of African-American literature as a continual, dialectical process, blending confrontation with traumatic origins and the quest for expressive transformation. This project arises from the question: how does one construe and narrate the story of a tradition for which the conventional structure of literary history is itself politically and thematically charged issue? Across the landscapes cultivated by each of its three volumes, the study confronts this question by developing a mode of critical history adequate to a literature that exerts transformative pressure on the very experience that engenders it, attending both to the material circumstances of its linguistic achievement and the expressive activity by which the black subject emerges.

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Black Configurations: The Ethos of "Tradition" from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison, Volume I
Black Configurations is the first volume of a three-volume study that offers a fresh reading of African-American literary history by locating within the literature itself the terms for a revisionary account of black writing, terms pursued along three distinct but interlocking pathways: by charting figurations of tradition among six of the most innovative practitioners of black literary expression from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison (Volume 1); by following the haunting pathways of spectral dialogues between slavery and African-American modernism (Volume 2); and by interrogating interlocking topoi of critique and assertion (naming; facing; voicing) across the history of African-American literary expression. The critical trilogy thereby presents a narrative of African-American literature as a continual, dialectical process, blending confrontation with traumatic origins and the quest for expressive transformation. This project arises from the question: how does one construe and narrate the story of a tradition for which the conventional structure of literary history is itself politically and thematically charged issue? Across the landscapes cultivated by each of its three volumes, the study confronts this question by developing a mode of critical history adequate to a literature that exerts transformative pressure on the very experience that engenders it, attending both to the material circumstances of its linguistic achievement and the expressive activity by which the black subject emerges.

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Black Configurations: The Ethos of

Black Configurations: The Ethos of "Tradition" from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison, Volume I

by Kimberly W. Benston
Black Configurations: The Ethos of

Black Configurations: The Ethos of "Tradition" from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison, Volume I

by Kimberly W. Benston

Hardcover

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Overview

Black Configurations is the first volume of a three-volume study that offers a fresh reading of African-American literary history by locating within the literature itself the terms for a revisionary account of black writing, terms pursued along three distinct but interlocking pathways: by charting figurations of tradition among six of the most innovative practitioners of black literary expression from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison (Volume 1); by following the haunting pathways of spectral dialogues between slavery and African-American modernism (Volume 2); and by interrogating interlocking topoi of critique and assertion (naming; facing; voicing) across the history of African-American literary expression. The critical trilogy thereby presents a narrative of African-American literature as a continual, dialectical process, blending confrontation with traumatic origins and the quest for expressive transformation. This project arises from the question: how does one construe and narrate the story of a tradition for which the conventional structure of literary history is itself politically and thematically charged issue? Across the landscapes cultivated by each of its three volumes, the study confronts this question by developing a mode of critical history adequate to a literature that exerts transformative pressure on the very experience that engenders it, attending both to the material circumstances of its linguistic achievement and the expressive activity by which the black subject emerges.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781785278679
Publisher: Anthem Press
Publication date: 12/31/2024
Series: Anthem Africology Series
Pages: 250
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kimberly W. Benston is Francis B. Gummere Professor of English and Africana Studies at Haverford College, where he has also served as Provost and President.

Table of Contents

Volume I: Black Configurations: The Ethos of “Tradition” from Sterling Brown to Toni Morrison— Introduction: The Conceit of Tradition; Sterling Brown: Tradition as Vernacular “Lie”; Zora Neale Hurston: Tradition as Scene of Instruction; Ralph Ellison: Tradition as Tragicomic Encounter; Amiri Baraka; Tradition as the Changing Same; Larry Neal: Tradition as Kuntu Montage; Michael Harper: Tradition as Modal Improvisation; Toni Morrison: Tradition as Traumatic Re-Memory; Volume II: Black Hauntologies: Slavery, Modernity, and Spectral Re-Vision—Introduction: Haints of the Past; Spectral (Re)Origination: Modernity, Slavery, and Traumatic Enuncation; Spectral Revolution: Slavery, Modernity, and the Politics of Conversation; Spectral (Re)Vision: Photography, Archive, and Transgressive Illumination; Conclusion: Ghosts of the Future; Volume III: Black Refigurations: Facing, Naming, and Voicing—Pre-Face: Entering the Master’s Book; (E)Facing: Topographical Visions; (Un)Naming: Transgressive Revisions; (Re)Voicing: Transformative Beginnings; Post-Script: Beyond the Copy-Book.

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