Bearing witness to African American literature validating and valorizing its authority, authenticity, and agency - Bell, Bernard W. (Wayne State University Press, 2012)
"Bearing Witness to African American Literature: Validating and Valorizing Its Authority, Authenticity, and Agency collects twenty-three of Bernard W. Bell's lectures and essays that were first presented between 1968 and 2008. From his role in the culture wars as a graduate student activist in the Black Studies Movement to his work in the transcultural Globalization Movement as an international scholar and Fulbright cultural ambassador in Spain, Portugal, and China, Bell's long and inspiring journey traces the modern institutional origins and the contemporary challengers of African American literary studies. This volume is made up of five sections, including chapters on W.E.B. DuBois's theory and trope of double consciousness, an original theory of residually oral forms for reading the African American novel, an argument for an African Americentric vernacular and literary tradition, and a deconstruction of the myths of the American melting pot and literary mainstream. Bell considers texts by contemporary writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, William Styron, James Baldwin, and Jean Toomer, as well as works by Mark Twain, Frederick Douglas, and William Faulkner, In a style that ranges from lyricism to the classic jeremiad, Bell emphasizes that his work bears the imprint of many major influences, including his mentor, poet and scholar Sterling A. Brown, and W.E.B. DuBois. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate Bell's central place as a revisionist African American literary and cultural theorist, historian, and critic. Bearing Witness to African American Literature will be an invaluable introduction to major issues in the African American literary tradition for scholars of American, African American, and cultural studies."--Project Muse
Includes bibliographical references and index
""Cover""; ""Half-title""; ""Title""; ""Copyright""; ""Contents""; ""Preface ""; ""Every Tongue Got to Confess ""; ""Introduction ""; ""Memoir: On Becoming an African American Scholar Activist ""; ""1. Double Consciousness as the Sign of African American Difference ""
""I. The African American Jeremiad and Frederick Douglassâ€?s Fourth of July 1852 Speech """"African American Double Consciousness""; ""The Sacred and Secular Origins of the American Jeremiad""; ""The African American Jeremiad""; ""That Most Foul and Fiendish of All Human Decrees""; ""What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?""; ""Notes""
""2. The Roots and Branches of the African American Literary Tradition """"I. The African American Literary Tradition ""; ""II. African American Writers ""; ""1""; ""2""; ""3""; ""III. The Image of Africa in the Afro-American Novel ""; ""White Images of Africa in Western Culture""; ""Early Images of Africa in the Afro-American Novel""