Product details
- ISBN 9780814353080
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 21 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Wayne State University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Analyzing the writer as an activist and feminist who helped shape the Black women's movement.
Frances E. W. Harper was a pioneering figure in nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American literature and intellectual thought. A poet, educator, lecturer, essayist, and novelist, she played a key role in the abolitionist and feminist movements, particularly in shaping the Black women's movement. Despite her influence, her work has remained largely overlooked.
In Politics and Poetics, Melba Joyce Boyd explores Harper not only as an activist but as a writer deeply embedded in the African American struggle for "freedom and literacy." Boyd examines Harper's poetry, novels, and speeches through the lenses of race, gender, and class, tracing her radicalism across three periods: the abolitionist years, the pursuit of freedom, and the woman's era. Harper's feminist voice remains strong throughout, particularly as she critiques both slavery and the racism within white feminist circles. Boyd's analysis combines biographical context with thematic and structural insights, illuminating how Harper's art and politics merged to create a powerful, enduring legacy.
Melba Joyce Boyd is a poet, scholar, editor, essayist, and filmmaker. She is the current poet laureate for the state of Michigan and was named a 2023 Kresge Eminent Artist. Boyd is Distinguished Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. She is the author of thirteen books, nine of which are poetry collections. Her publications have earned two Michigan Notable Book awards, an Independent Publisher Book Award, and an Honor award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, and have been named finalists for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry and for a Foreword Book of the Year Award.
