Reading Contemporary African American Literature

Black Womens Popular Fiction, Post-Civil Rights Experience, and the African American Canon

By (author) Beauty Bragg

Publication date:

12 November 2014

Length of book:

140 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739188781

Reading Contemporary African American Literature focuses on the subject of contemporary African American popular fiction by women. Bragg’s study addresses why such work should be the subject of scholarly examination, describes the events and attitudes which account for the critical neglect of this body of work, and models a critical approach to such narratives that demonstrates the distinctive ways in which this literature captures the complexities of post-civil rights era black experiences. In making her arguments regarding the value of popular writing, Bragg argues that black women’s popular fiction foregrounds gender in ways that are frequently missing from other modes of narrative production. They exhibit a responsiveness and timeliness to the shifting social terrain which is reflected in the rapidly shifting styles and themes which characterize popular fiction. In doing so, they extend the historical function of African American literature by continuing to engage the black body as a symbol of political meaning in the social context of the United States. In popular literature Beauty Bragg locates a space from which black women engage a variety of public discourses.

Table of Contents
Introduction: Locating an African American Literary Tradition
Chapter 1: The Reconstructionist Canon, Black Feminist Literary Perspectives, and Popular Potential
Chapter 2: Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby and the Problem of Classification
Chapter 3: Girlfriend Fiction: Black Women Writers and Readers Negotiating Post-Civil Rights Womanhood
Chapter 4: Feminism and the Streets: Urban Fiction and the Quest for Female Independence in the Era of Transactional Sexuality
Chapter 5: Hip Hop Tell-All Memoirs and Modes of Self-Construction
Conclusion: From Critical Practice to Classroom Practice
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Bragg’s new study offers support for those wishing to re-examine the incorporation of popular fiction in their classrooms or scholarship. This new analysis of popular fiction places popular fiction alongside historical writing movements, offers feminist approaches to understanding the goals of black women authors’ fiction, and gives scholars a new foundation to build upon. Popular fiction is needed in the classroom and the canon, and would be a welcome addition to scholarly studies. Those interested and working with, or even considering, popular fiction should pick this study up as a framework for analysis.