Choose an application

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

Wallach (Georgia College and State Univ.) provides a fascinating look at literary memoirs that deal with US racism against African Americans. She rightly notes that historians have been loathe to accept memoirs as historical documents, since the genre is by nature subjective. However, she persuasively demonstrates that memoirs (as representative of "emotive inquiry") are indeed valuable primary documents, when analyzed properly. Wallach examines both black memoirists (Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Henry Louis Gates Jr.) and white memoirists (Willie Morris, Lillian Smith, and William Alexander Percy), investigating each independently and comparatively. The insights from her explications are remarkable, derived particularly through her use of theoretical and historiographical material. By maintaining that literary (as opposed to nonliterary) memoirs provide the deepest historical understanding expressly because literary critics can apply their disciplinary tools to mine the material, Wallach will undoubtedly provoke a lively debate over the comparable utility of other kinds of memoirs, such as popular, vernacular, or ethnographic. Likewise contentious may be her focus on southern rather than broadly US racism. J.B. Wolford University of Missouri--St. Louis distributed by Syndetics.

African Americans --- Autobiography --- Race discrimination --- African American autobiography --- Autobiography of African Americans --- Bias, Racial --- Discrimination, Racial --- Race bias --- Racial bias --- Racial discrimination --- Discrimination --- Afro-Americans --- Black Americans --- Colored people (United States) --- Negroes --- Africans --- Ethnology --- Blacks --- History and criticism. --- African American authors. --- Historiography. --- Segregation --- Social conditions --- Afro-American authors --- Biography --- Historiography --- United States --- African American authors --- History and criticism --- Black people

Choose an application

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

Examining autobiographical texts by Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X), Oscar Zeta Acosta (The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and Revolt of the Cockroach People), Amiri Baraka (The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones), and Richard Rodriguez (Hunger of Memory, Days of Obligation, and Brown), Walker questions the often rosy views and simplistic binary conceptions of religious conversion. Her reading of these texts takes into account the conflict and serial changes the authors experience in a society that marginalizes them, the manne

Religion and literature --- Self-realization in literature. --- Conversion in literature. --- Autobiography --- American prose literature --- Literature --- Literature and religion --- Autobiographies --- Egodocuments --- Memoirs --- Biography as a literary form --- African American autobiography --- Autobiography of African Americans --- American literature --- History --- Mexican American authors. --- African American authors. --- Minority authors --- History and criticism. --- Moral and religious aspects --- History and criticism --- Technique --- Afro-American authors

Choose an application

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

In Abolitionists Remember, Julie Roy Jeffrey illuminates a second, little-noted antislavery struggle as abolitionists in the postwar period attempted to counter the nation's growing inclination to forget why the war was fought, what slavery was really like, and why the abolitionist cause was so important. In the rush to mend fences after the Civil War, the memory of the past faded and turned romantic--slaves became quaint, owners kindly, and the war itself a noble struggle for the Union. Jeffrey examines the autobiographical writings of former abolitionists such as Laura Havilan

Abolitionists --- African American abolitionists --- Fugitive slaves --- Autobiography. --- Autobiography --- Slaves --- Antislavery movements --- African Americans --- Memory --- African American authors. --- Emancipation --- History --- Civil rights --- Social aspects --- United States --- Causes. --- African American autobiography --- Autobiography of African Americans --- Autobiographies --- Egodocuments --- Memoirs --- Retention (Psychology) --- Slavery --- Afro-American authors --- History and criticism --- Technique --- Biography as a literary form --- Intellect --- Psychology --- Thought and thinking --- Comprehension --- Executive functions (Neuropsychology) --- Mnemonics --- Perseveration (Psychology) --- Reproduction (Psychology) --- Enslaved persons

Choose an application

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

Even the most cursory review of black literary production during the nineteenth century indicates that its primary concerns were the issues of slavery, racial subjugation, abolitionist politics and liberation. How did the writers of these narratives ""bear witness"" to the experiences they describe? At a time when a hegemonic discourse on these subjects already existed, what did it mean to ""tell the truth"" about slavery?. Impossible Witnesses explores these questions through a study of fiction, poetry, essays, and slave narratives from the abolitionist era. Linking the racialized discourses

African Americans in literature. --- African Americans --- American prose literature --- Antislavery movements --- Autobiography --- Slavery in literature. --- Slaves --- Slaves' writings, American --- Biography --- History and criticism. --- Intellectual life --- African American authors --- History --- African American authors. --- Intellectual life. --- American slaves' writings --- American literature --- Enslaved persons --- Persons --- Slavery --- African American autobiography --- Autobiography of African Americans --- Afro-Americans in literature --- Negroes in literature --- Slavery and slaves in literature --- Slaves in literature --- Afro-American authors --- American enslaved persons' writings --- Enslaved persons in literature --- Enslaved persons' writings, American

Choose an application

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

According to nineteenth-century racial uplift ideology, African American women served their race best as reformers and activists, or as "doers of the word." This book examines the autobiographies of four women who diverged from that ideal and defended the legitimacy of their self-supporting wage labor.

American prose literature --- Women and literature --- African American women --- African American women in the professions --- Narration (Rhetoric) --- Autobiography --- African American women in literature. --- Autobiography of women --- Women's autobiography --- Afro-American women in literature --- African American autobiography --- Autobiography of African Americans --- Afro-American women --- Women, African American --- Women, Negro --- Women --- Afro-American women in the professions --- Professions --- African American authors --- History and criticism. --- Women authors --- History --- Intellectual life --- History. --- Employment --- African American authors. --- Women authors. --- Afro-American authors --- Rhetoric --- Discourse analysis, Narrative --- Narratees (Rhetoric)