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Race in literature. --- African American men in literature. --- Afro-American men in literature --- Johnson, James Weldon,

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James Baldwin's first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, has gained a wide readership and much critical acclaim since its publication in 1953. While most critics have seen it as focusing exclusively on the African American fundamentalist church and its effect on characters brought up within its tradition, these scholars posit that issues of homosexuality, the social construction of identity, anthropological conceptions of community, and the quest for an artistic identity provide more elucidating approaches to the novel. Trudier Harris's introduction traces the history of its composition and the critical responses after its eventual publication; Michael F. Lynch re-evaluates the religious centre of the novel; Bryan R. Washington argues that the text has much to do with the uncovering of sexual identity; Vivian M. May uncovers the shifting identities throughout the work; and Keith Clark explores the quest of the characters for male communitas.

Baldwin, James --- Arts and Humanities --- Literature --- African American churches in literature. --- African American men in literature. --- African American churches in literature --- African American men in literature --- English --- Languages & Literatures --- American Literature --- Afro-American men in literature --- Baldwin, James,

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Taking a close look at all the key male figures in Toni Morrison’s eight novels, this book explores Morrison’s admitted, but critically neglected, interest in the relationships between African American men and women and the “axes” on which these relationships turn. Most Morrison scholarship deals with her female characters. Can’t I Love What I Criticize? offers a response to this imbalance and to Morrison’s call for more work on men, who remain, in her words, “outside of that little community value thing.”The book also considers the barriers between black men and women thrown up by their participation in a larger, historically racist culture of competition, ownership, sexual repression, and fixed ideals about physical beauty and romantic love. Black women, Morrison says, bear their crosses “extremely well,” and black men, although they have been routinely emasculated by “white men, period,” have managed to maintain a feisty “magic” that everybody wants but nobody else has.Understanding Morrison’s treatment of her male characters, says Susan Mayberry, becomes crucial to grasping her success in “countering the damage done by a spectrum of sometimes misguided isms”--including white American feminism. Morrison’s version of masculinity suggests that black men have “successfully retained their special vitality in spite of white male resistance” and that “their connections to black women have saved their lives.” To single out her men is not to negate the preeminence of her women; rather, it is to recognize the interconnectedness and balance between them.

Masculinity in literature. --- African American men in literature. --- Masculinity (Psychology) in literature --- Afro-American men in literature --- Morrison, Toni --- Criticism and interpretation. --- Wofford, Chloe Anthony --- Morrisonová, Toni --- מוריסון, טוני --- Masculinity in literature --- Morrison, Toni.

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The portrayal of black men in our national literature is controversial, complex, and often contradictory. In Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature, Jeffrey B. Leak identifies some of the long-held myths and stereotypes that persist in the work of black writers from the nineteenth century to the present?intellectual inferiority, criminality, sexual prowess, homosexual emasculation, and cultural deprivation. Utilizing Robert B. Stepto's call-and-response theory, Leak studies four pairs of novels within the context of certain myths, identifying the literary tandems between them and seeking to discover the source of our culture?s psychological preoccupation with black men.Calling upon interdisciplinary fields of study?literary theory, psychoanalysis, gender studies, legal theory, and queer theory?Leak offers groundbreaking analysis of both canonical texts (representing the "call" of the call-and-response dyad) and texts by emerging writers (representing the ?response?), including Frederick Douglass and Charles Johnson; Ralph Ellison and Brent Wade; Richard Wright and Ernest J. Gaines; and Toni Morrison and David Bradley. Though Leak does not claim that the ?response? texts are superior to the "call" texts, he does argue that, in some cases, the newer work-such as Charles Johnson's Oxherding Tale-can address a theme or offer a narrative innovation not found in preceding texts, such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In these instances, argues Leak, the newer texts constitute not only a response to the call text, but a substantial revision. Leak offers the first in-depth criticism of black masculinity in a range of literary texts. In a final chapter, he expands his discussion to the emerging field of black masculinity studies, pointing to future directions for study, including memoir, film, drama, and others. Poised on the brink of exciting new trends in scholarship, Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature is a flagship work, enhancing the understanding of literary constructions of black masculinity and the larger cultural imperatives to which these writers are reacting.

American fiction --- African Americans --- African American men in literature --- Masculinity in literature --- Race in literature --- Myth in literature --- Men in literature --- African American authors --- History and criticism --- Intellectual life --- Masculinity (Psychology) in literature --- American literature --- African American intellectuals --- Afro-American men in literature --- African American authors&delete&

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An important new collection of original essays that examine how Ellison's landmark novel, Invisible Man (1952), addresses the social, cultural, political, economic, and racial contradictions of America. Commenting on the significance of Mark Twain's writings, Ralph Ellison wrote that ""a novel could be fashioned as a raft of hope, perception and entertainment that might help keep us afloat as we tried to negotiate the snags and whirlpools that mark our nation's vacillating course toward and away from the democratic ideal."" Ellison believed it was the contradiction between America's ""noble id

African Americans in literature. --- African American men in literature. --- Political fiction, American --- Politics and literature --- Afro-Americans in literature --- Negroes in literature --- Afro-American men in literature --- History and criticism. --- History --- Ellison, Ralph --- Ellison, Ralph. --- אליסון, ראלף --- Political and social views.