Before Harlem
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A01=Ajuan Maria Mance
African American canon
African American readership
African American religious writings
African American studies
African American-owned publications
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Ajuan Maria Mance
Author_Ajuan Maria Mance
autobiographical writings
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Before Harlem
black church
black history
black intellectual life
black literary history
black writers
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DNT
Category=DQ
Category=JBSL
Category=JFSL3
community publications
COP=United States
cultural debates
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_anthologies-novellas-short-stories
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_fiction
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eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
essays
fiction
Frederick Douglass
Harlem Renaissance
Henrietta Cordelia Ray
journalism
Language_English
nineteenth-century African American literature
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Paul Laurence Dunbar
poetry
post-Civil War writing
Price_€50 to €100
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Reconstruction
sermons
social struggles
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Solomon G. Brown
T. Thomas Fortune
Product details
- ISBN 9781621902027
- Weight: 1017g
- Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 15 Mar 2016
- Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Despite important recovery and authentication efforts during the last twenty-five years, the vast majority of nineteenth-century African American writers and their work remain unknown to today’s readers. Moreover, the most widely used anthologies of black writing have resulted in a canon based largely on current interests and priorities. Seeking to establish a broader perspective, this collection brings together a wealth of autobiographical writings, fiction, poetry, speeches, sermons, essays, and journalism that better portrays the intellectual and cultural debates, social and political struggles, and community publications and institutions that nurtured black writers from the early 1800s to the eve of the Harlem Renaissance.
As editor Ajuan Mance notes, previous collections have focused mainly on writing that found a significant audience among white readers. Consequently, authors whose work appeared in African American-owned publications for a primarily black audience—such as Solomon G. Brown, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, and T. Thomas Fortune—have faded from memory. Even figures as celebrated as Frederick Douglass and Paul Laurence Dunbar are today much better known for their “cross-racial” writings than for the larger bodies of work they produced for a mostly African American readership. There has also been a tendency in modern canon making, especially in the genre of autobiography, to stress antebellum writing rather than writings produced after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Similarly, religious writings—despite the centrality of the church in the everyday lives of black readers and the interconnectedness of black spiritual and intellectual life—have not received the emphasis they deserve.
Filling those critical gaps with a selection of 143 works by 65 writers, Before Harlem presents as never before an in-depth picture of the literary, aesthetic, and intellectual landscape of nineteenth-century African America and will be a valuable resource for a new generation of readers.
As editor Ajuan Mance notes, previous collections have focused mainly on writing that found a significant audience among white readers. Consequently, authors whose work appeared in African American-owned publications for a primarily black audience—such as Solomon G. Brown, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, and T. Thomas Fortune—have faded from memory. Even figures as celebrated as Frederick Douglass and Paul Laurence Dunbar are today much better known for their “cross-racial” writings than for the larger bodies of work they produced for a mostly African American readership. There has also been a tendency in modern canon making, especially in the genre of autobiography, to stress antebellum writing rather than writings produced after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Similarly, religious writings—despite the centrality of the church in the everyday lives of black readers and the interconnectedness of black spiritual and intellectual life—have not received the emphasis they deserve.
Filling those critical gaps with a selection of 143 works by 65 writers, Before Harlem presents as never before an in-depth picture of the literary, aesthetic, and intellectual landscape of nineteenth-century African America and will be a valuable resource for a new generation of readers.
Ajuan Maria Mance is a professor of English at Mills College in Oakland, California, USA. She is the author of Inventing Black Women: African American Poets and Self-Representation, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of African American Studies, Callaloo, and several edited collections.
