South of Tradition: Essays on African American Literature

by Trudier Harris

Overview

With characteristic originality and insight, Trudier Harris-Lopez offers a new and challenging approach to the work of African American writers in these twelve previously unpublished essays. Collectively, the essays show the vibrancy of African American literary creation across several decades of the twentieth century. But Harris-Lopez's readings of the various texts deliberately diverge from traditional ways of viewing traditional topics.

South of Tradition focuses not only on well-known writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright, but also on up-and-coming writers such as Randall Kenan and less-known writers such as Brent Wade and Henry Dumas. Harris-Lopez addresses themes of sexual and racial identity, reconceptualizations of and transcendence of Christianity, analyses of African American folk and cultural traditions, and issues of racial justice. Many of her subjects argue that geography shapes identity, whether that geography is the European territory many blacks escaped to from the oppressive South, or the South itself, where generations of African Americans have had to come to grips with their relationship to the land and its history. For Harris-Lopez, "south of tradition" refers both to geography and to readings of texts that are not in keeping with expected responses to the works. She explains her point of departure for the essays as "a slant, an angle, or a jolt below the line of what would be considered the norm for usual responses to African American literature."

The scope of Harris-Lopez's work is tremendous. From her coverage of noncanonical writers to her analysis of humor in the best-selling The Color Purple, she provides essential material that should inform all future readings of African American literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820324333
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	11/18/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

TRUDIER HARRIS is University Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of English at the University of Alabama. She is author of The Power of the Porch (Georgia), The Scary Mason-Dixon Line: African American Writers and the South, and Martin Luther King Jr., Heroism and African American Literature.

TRUDIER HARRIS is University Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of English at the University of Alabama. She is author of The Power of the Porch (Georgia), The Scary Mason-Dixon Line: African American Writers and the South, and Martin Luther King Jr., Heroism and African American Literature.

Table of Contents

Contents
Preface
1 Humor in Alice Walker's The Color Purple
2 Slanting the Truth: Homosexuality, Manhood, and Race in James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room
3 New Invisible Man: Revisiting a Nightmare in the 1990s (Brent Wade's Company Man and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man)
4 Zapping the Editor, Or, How to Tell Censors to Kiss Off without Really Trying: Zore Neale Hurston's Fights with Authority Figures in Dust Tracks on a Road
5 Architecture As Destiny? Women and Survival Strategies in Ann Petry's The Street
6 Chocklit Geography: Raymond Andrews's Mythical South
7 The Necessary Binding: Prison Experiences in Three August Wilson Plays
8 Hands beyond the Grave: Henry Dumas's Influence on Toni Morrison
9 Salting the Land but Not the Imagination: William Melvin Kelley's A Different Drummer
10 Transformations of the Land in Randall Kenan's "The Foundations of the Earth"
11 Expectations Too Great: The Failure of Racial Calling in Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth
12 Ugly Legacies of the Harlem Renaissance and Earlier: Soul Food and New Negroes
Index

Editorial Reviews

[T]he author does something rare among scholars: she revisits her past writing and, where appropriate, updates some of her views. . . . The critiques in this collection are jarring and enlightening because of their accuracy. Harris-Lopez's approach to studying various African American literary forms is unique because she recognizes that growth is common to readers as well as writers.

Choice

Highlight[s] a scholarly career of originality and complex vision . . . [A] bold, comprehensive and ingenious volume that proves good theory is not always ‘high theory.’ . . . [A] mark of excellence that deserves the accolades it is sure to receive.

Southern Literary Journal

The scope of this work—and of Harris's scholarship in general—is mind-boggling. Harris-Lopez writes brilliantly on a range of subjects, works, and authors. She is one of the most inspired and inspiring minds of our times.

editor of From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore - Daryl Cumber Dance

Throughout South of Tradition, the most compelling readings are those that attempt to open the door to ‘real’ black lives outside theory. . . . South of Tradition will provoke, if not please, all. But that is what makes it such an admirable contribution.

American Literature

Trudier Harris-Lopez has one of the most original and synthentic minds in a great long while. The range of her knowledge is astounding, the candor of her conclusions are astonishing, and the sum total is just wonderful.

author of Written By Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746–1892 - Frances Smith Foster

Trudier Harris-Lopez is one of the leading literary critics of our generation.

author of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man - Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Harris-Lopez's readers are in the hands of one of the most experienced critics of African-American literature in the academy today, and her confident, authoritative style of writing conveys this fact.

Mississippi Quarterly

Trudier Harris seldom fails to astonish us critically with the range and ambitiousness of her projects. Her scholarly dedication has influenced generations. It is difficult to imagine how different our intellectual landscape would be without her.

author of Turning South Again: Re-Thinking Modernism/Re-Reading Booker T. - Houston A. Baker Jr.

"The scope of this work—and of Harris's scholarship in general—is mind-boggling. Harris-Lopez writes brilliantly on a range of subjects, works, and authors. She is one of the most inspired and inspiring minds of our times."--Daryl Cumber Dance, editor of From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore

"Trudier Harris seldom fails to astonish us critically with the range and ambitiousness of her projects. Her scholarly dedication has influenced generations. It is difficult to imagine how different our intellectual landscape would be without her."--Houston A. Baker, Jr., author of Turning South Again: Re-Thinking Modernism/Re-Reading Booker T.

"Trudier Harris-Lopez has one of the most original and synthentic minds in a great long while. The range of her knowledge is astounding, the candor of her conclusions are astonishing, and the sum total is just wonderful."--Frances Smith Foster, author of Written By Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746–1892

"Highlight[s] a scholarly career of originality and complex vision . . . [A] bold, comprehensive and ingenious volume that proves good theory is not always ‘high theory.’ . . . [A] mark of excellence that deserves the accolades it is sure to receive."--Southern Literary Journal

"Trudier Harris-Lopez is one of the leading literary critics of our generation."--Henry Louis Gates Jr., author of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man

"Throughout South of Tradition, the most compelling readings are those that attempt to open the door to ‘real’ black lives outside theory. . . . South of Tradition will provoke, if not please, all. But that is what makes it such an admirable contribution.”--American Literature

"Harris-Lopez's readers are in the hands of one of the most experienced critics of African-American literature in the academy today, and her confident, authoritative style of writing conveys this fact."--Mississippi Quarterly

"[T]he author does something rare among scholars: she revisits her past writing and, where appropriate, updates some of her views. . . . The critiques in this collection are jarring and enlightening because of their accuracy. Harris-Lopez's approach to studying various African American literary forms is unique because she recognizes that growth is common to readers as well as writers."--Choice

From the Publisher