African American Review articles from September 1998

African American Review archives from September 1998

Nella Larsen's 'Passing' and the fading subject.
September 22, 1998... . . . Irene Redfield wished, for the first time in her life, that she had not been born a Negro. For the first time she suffered and rebelled because she was unable to disregard the burden of race. It was, she cried silently, enough to suffer as...

Zora Neale Hurston and the post-modern self in 'Dust Tracks on a Road.'
September 22, 1998... In the last thirty-five years, Zora Neale Hurston's literary reputation has grown from the obscurity in which Hurston died to the status of a major American author. However, despite her substantial body of work, the revival of her reputation...

"The world in a jug and the stopper in (her) hand": 'Their Eyes' as blues performance. (novel entitled 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' by Zora Neale Hurston)
September 22, 1998... In her essays and autobiography as well as in her fiction, Zora Neale Hurston used the aesthetic principles, language, character, and structure of the blues to challenge socially prescribed roles of African American women. Like Bessie Smith and...

Looking into the self that is no self: an examination of subjectivity in 'Beloved.'
September 22, 1998... In a 1989 interview with Bonnie Angelo of Time magazine, Toni Morrison discussed the desire of our nation to repress the memory of slavery. According to Morrison, the enslavement of Africans and African Americans in the United States is...

An interview with Brent Wade. (African American author)(Interview)
September 22, 1998... In the summer of 1994, during the National Black Arts Festival held in Atlanta, Brent Wade was gracious enough to share with me his thoughts on his 1992 novel Company Man. The entrance of Wade, a black man in corporate America, into the literary...

Ishmael Reed's inductive narratology of detection. (African American author)
September 22, 1998... A Narratology of Free Voices Words walking without masters. (qtd. in Gates, Signifying 215) Pallbearers did not read like Henry James. (Chapple 18) A salient feature of Reed's chaotic-seeming narratology is the fact that he presents voices...

"Kin' o'rough jestice fer a parson": Pauline Hopkins's 'Winona' and the politics of reconstructing history.
September 22, 1998... It was a terrible struggle between the two great forces - Right and Wrong. Drunken with vile passions, the Rangers fought madly but in vain against the almost supernatural prowess of their op[p]onents; like the old Spartans who braided their hair...

Making Peace. (short story)
September 22, 1998... Peace. In the round world there ain't nothing like it. Fields green with corn and tobacco, rows of pole beans stretching out to meet forever. Wooden houses with dusty screen doors set to banging by a third generation of younguns that know they...

Enacting difference: Marita Bonner's 'Purple Flower' and the ambiguities of race.
September 22, 1998... Setting: The stage is divided horizontally into two sections, upper and lower, by a thin board. The main action takes place on the upper stage. The light is never quite clear on the lower stage; but it is bright enough for you to perceive that...

Divided images: black female spectatorship and John Stahl's 'Imitation of Life.'
September 22, 1998... In her discussion of the maternal melodrama, E. Ann Kaplan notes that the mother is usually marginal in traditional cinema. Stories told from the viewpoint of the husband or child displace the mother's perspective, a displacement that Kaplan...

When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor.
September 22, 1998... William J. Wilson. New York: Knopf, 1996.322 pp. $27.50. Reviewed by Daryl Michael Scott Columbia University Since the Great Depression social scientists have believed that long-term unemployment results in tragedies for individuals and...

The Harlem Renaissance: 1920-1940, vol. 4, The Critics and the Harlem Renaissance.
September 22, 1998... Cary D. Wintz, ed., Vol. 4. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996. 382 pp. $75.00. Reviewed by Angelyn Mitchell Georgetown University Cary D. Wintz's seven-volume series, The Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1940, is a wonderful addition to the...

Jean Toomer: Selected Essays and Literary Criticism.
September 22, 1998... Robert B. Jones, ed. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1996. 160 pp. $25.00. Reviewed by Kathleen Pfeiffer Oakland University Jean Toomer has long been an enigmatic figure in both American literature and African American culture. The...

On Gwendolyn Brooks: Reliant Contemplation.
September 22, 1998... Stephen Caldwell Wright, ed. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1996. 277 pp. $42.00. Reviewed by Harry B. Shaw University of Florida Stephen Caldwell Wright's On Gwendolyn Brooks: Reliant Contemplation offers a useful companion piece for those...

Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison's Novels.
September 22, 1998... Philip Page. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 1995. 231 pp. $62.50. Reviewed by Karla Y. E. Frye University of Alabama Critical analyzes and theories about Toni Morrison's novels have adequately discussed her parallel concern with exploring...

Producing a Womanist Text: The Maternal as Signifier in Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple.'
September 22, 1998... Janet J. Montelaro. ELS Monograph Series 70. Victoria: U of Victoria, 1996.96 pp. $12.00. Reviewed by Mary Margaret Richards Wofford College This monograph offers useful comments on Walker's use of the maternal in The Color Purple....

Technical Difficulties: Notes on the State of the Union.
September 22, 1998... June Jordan. New York: Vintage, 1994. 234 pp. $12.00. Reviewed by Carla Freccero University of California, Santa Cruz Technical Difficulties, June Jordan's latest collection of essays, represents, as the subtitle indicates, "notes on the...

Dear Future.
September 22, 1998... Fred D'Aguiar. New York: Pantheon, 1996. 206 pp. $22.00. Reviewed by Heather Hathaway Marquette University In a 1992 interview (Ariel 24.1[1993]), Guyanese author and editor Frank Birbalsingh discussed with his countryman Fred D'Aguiar the...

Honorable Amendments.
September 22, 1998... Michael Harper. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1995. 138 pp. $12.95. Reviewed by Calvin Forbes The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Michael Harper's place in American poetry is a complex one. For sure, his is a well-known presence, yet his...