African American Literature in Transition, 1750–1800: Volume 1

This book examines how transition – from forced migration to revolutionary wars – shaped the development of early African American literature.

Rhondda Robinson Thomas (Edited by)

9781108495073, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 April 2022

400 pages
23.5 x 15.4 x 2.6 cm, 0.675 kg

This volume provides an illuminating exploration of the development of early African American literature from an African diasporic perspective—in Africa, England, and the Americas. It juxtaposes analyses of writings by familiar authors like Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano with those of lesser known or examined works by writers such as David Margrett and Isabel de Olvera to explore how issues including forced migration, enslavement, authorship, and racial identity influenced early Black literary production and how theoretical frameworks like Afrofuturism and intersectionality can enrich our understanding of texts produced in this period. Chapters grouped in four sections – Limits and Liberties of Early Black Print Culture, Black Writing and Revolution, Early African American Life in Literature, and Evolutions of Early Black Literature – examine how transitions coupled with conceptions of race, the impacts of revolution, and the effects of religion shaped the trajectory of authors' lives and the production of their literature.

Introduction: Impatient of oppression in early African American writing in transition Rhondda Robinson Thomas
Part I. Limits and Liberties of Early Black Print Culture: 1. Early black evangelical writing and the radical limitations of print Joseph Rezek
2. The circulation of early black Atlantic literature Eric D. Lamore
3. What makes a text 'Black'? from authorship to metadata Jordan Alexander Stein
Part II. Black Writing and Revolution: 4. African Americans writing themselves into history during the age of revolution Daniel C. Littlefield
5. African American writing in the era of independence Thomas J. Davis
6. Black literary engagement with the Haitian revolution Ronald Angelo Johnson
Part III. Early African American Life in Literature: 7. Reading and building a Nation
or everyday living (while Black) in early America Tara Bynum
8. Respectability politics and early African American literature Cassander L. Smith
9. Early black futures Brigitte Fielder
Part IV. Evolutions of Early Black Literature: 10. Black authors and British National identity, 1763-1791 Ryan Hanley
11. The competing demands of early African American literature, 1783-1798 Katy L. Chiles
12. Black letters close the eighteenth century John Saillant
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: American Civil War [HBWJ], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]