The Journey Back

by Houston A. Baker, Jr.

Overview

"Professor Baker offers the richest analysis we have of black literature in its full cultural context. A superb literary critic, a sophisticated student of culture and society, Baker is himself a very talented writer, deeply engaged in the literary-cultural 'journey' he describes. The result is a major work of interdisciplinary scholarship and humanistic criticism which will remain for years to come an authoritative treatment of the subject. The Journey Back is a landmark not only in the study of black literature but in American studies in general. No one interested in our culture can afford to ignore it."—Sacvan Bercovitch, Columbia University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226035352
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	01/15/1984
Series:	Black Literature and Culture Ser.
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Houston A. Baker is Distinguished University Professor and a professor of English at Vanderbilt University. He has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been a resident fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the National Humanities Center. He has served as president of the Modern Language Association and as editor of the journal American Literature.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Terms for Order: Acculturation, Meaning, and the Early Record of the Journey
2. Autobiographical Acts and the Voice of the Southern Slave
3. Sightings: Black Historical Consciousness and the New Harbors of the Fifties
4. In Our Own Time: The Florescence of Nationalism in the Sixties and Seventies
5. The Black Spokesman as Critic: Reflections on the Black Aesthetic
6. Black Creativity and American Attitudes
7. Toward a Critical Prospect for the Future
Conclusion
Notes
Index