Forgotten Readers Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies
Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies

Over the past decade the popularity of black writers including E. Lynn Harris and Terry McMillan has been hailed as an indication that an active African American reading public has come into being. Yet this is not a new trend; there is a vibrant history of African American literacy, literary associa...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: McHenry, Elizabeth (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Pease, Donald E. 1945- (HerausgeberIn)
Format: Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: Durham Duke University Press [2002]
Schriftenreihe:A John Hope Franklin Center Book
Schlagworte:
LITERARY CRITICISM / American / African-American
African Americans in literature
African Americans > Books and reading
African Americans > Intellectual life > 19th century
American literature > African American authors > Appreciation > United States
American literature > African American authors > History and criticism
American literature > 19th century > History and criticism
Literature > Societies, etc
Online-Zugang:FAB01
FAW01
FCO01
FHA01
FKE01
FLA01
UBG01
UPA01
URL des Erstveröffentlichers
Zusammenfassung:Over the past decade the popularity of black writers including E. Lynn Harris and Terry McMillan has been hailed as an indication that an active African American reading public has come into being. Yet this is not a new trend; there is a vibrant history of African American literacy, literary associations, and book clubs. Forgotten Readers reveals that neglected past, looking at the reading practices of free blacks in the antebellum north and among African Americans following the Civil War. It places the black upper and middle classes within American literary history, illustrating how they used reading and literary conversation as a means to assert their civic identities and intervene in the political and literary cultures of the United States from which they were otherwise excluded.Forgotten Readers expands our definition of literacy and urges us to think of literature as broadly as it was conceived of in the nineteenth century. Elizabeth McHenry delves into archival sources, including the records of past literary societies and the unpublished writings of their members. She examines particular literary associations, including the Saturday Nighters of Washington, D.C., whose members included Jean Toomer and Georgia Douglas Johnson. She shows how black literary societies developed, their relationship to the black press, and the ways that African American women's clubs-which flourished during the 1890s-encouraged literary activity. In an epilogue, McHenry connects this rich tradition of African American interest in books, reading, and literary conversation to contemporary literary phenomena such as Oprah Winfrey's book club
Beschreibung:Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 12. Dez 2020)
Beschreibung:1 online resource (440 pages) 4 b&w photos
ISBN:9780822384144
DOI:10.1515/9780822384144

Es ist kein Print-Exemplar vorhanden.

Fernleihe Bestellen Achtung: Nicht im THWS-Bestand! Volltext öffnen

Ähnliche Einträge