Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

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.

African Americans in literature --- Afro-Americans in literature --- Afro-Amerikanen in de literatuur --- Afro-Américains dans la littérature --- Amerikaanse zwarten in de literatuur --- Black Americans in literature --- Esclavage dans la littérature --- Esclaves dans la littérature --- Negroes in literature --- Noirs américains dans la littérature --- Slaven in de literatuur --- Slavernij in de literatuur --- Slavery in literature --- Slaves in literature --- Zwarte Amerikanen in de literatuur --- American fiction --- Historical fiction, American --- Fantasy fiction, American --- Postmodernism (Literature) --- History and criticism --- African American authors --- 20th century --- Historical fiction [American ] --- Fantasy fiction [American] --- United States --- Reed, Ishmael --- Butler, Octavia E. --- Morrison, Toni --- Johnson, Charles Richard --- Knowledge --- History --- Slaves in literature. --- African Americans in literature. --- Slavery in literature. --- History and criticism. --- Morrison, Toni. --- Reed, Ishmael, --- Johnson, Charles Richard, --- History. --- Slavery and slaves in literature --- Enslaved persons in literature