TY - BOOK ID - 2987669 TI - Re-Forming the Past : History, The Fantastic, and the Postmodern Slave Narrative PY - 2005 SN - 0814210066 0814272754 PB - Columbus : Ohio State University Press, DB - UniCat KW - African Americans in literature KW - Afro-Americans in literature KW - Afro-Amerikanen in de literatuur KW - Afro-Américains dans la littérature KW - Amerikaanse zwarten in de literatuur KW - Black Americans in literature KW - Esclavage dans la littérature KW - Esclaves dans la littérature KW - Negroes in literature KW - Noirs américains dans la littérature KW - Slaven in de literatuur KW - Slavernij in de literatuur KW - Slavery in literature KW - Slaves in literature KW - Zwarte Amerikanen in de literatuur KW - American fiction KW - Historical fiction, American KW - Fantasy fiction, American KW - Postmodernism (Literature) KW - History and criticism KW - African American authors KW - 20th century KW - Historical fiction [American ] KW - Fantasy fiction [American] KW - United States KW - Reed, Ishmael KW - Butler, Octavia E. KW - Morrison, Toni KW - Johnson, Charles Richard KW - Knowledge KW - History KW - Slaves in literature. KW - African Americans in literature. KW - Slavery in literature. KW - History and criticism. KW - Morrison, Toni. KW - Reed, Ishmael, KW - Johnson, Charles Richard, KW - History. KW - Slavery and slaves in literature KW - Enslaved persons in literature UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:2987669 AB - The slave experience was a defining one in American history, and not surprisingly, has been a significant and powerful trope in African American literature. In Re-Forming the Past, A. Timothy Spaulding examines contemporary revisions of slave narratives that use elements of the fantastic to redefine the historical and literary constructions of American slavery. In their rejection of mimetic representation and traditional historiography, postmodern slave narratives such as Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada, Octavia Butler's Kindred, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Charles Johnson's Ox Herding Tale and Middle Passage, Jewelle Gomez's The Gilda Stories, and Samuel Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand set out to counter the usual slave narrative's reliance on realism and objectivity by creating alternative histories based on subjective, fantastic, and non-realistic representations of slavery. As these texts critique traditional conceptions of history, identity, and aesthetic form, they simultaneously re-invest these concepts with a political agency that harkens back to the original project of the 19th-century slave narratives. In their rejection of mimetic representation and traditional historiography, Spaulding contextualizes postmodern slave narrative. By addressing both literary and popular African American texts, Re-Forming the Past expands discussions of both the African American literary tradition and postmodern culture. ER -