MLA Commons | LLC African American Forum | Activity https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/ Activity feed for the group, LLC African American Forum. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 09:21:12 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 ebacf549ff1f52a98624f3fa889d83a4 Rhone Fraser started the topic A Panel on Hurston's "Herod the Great" in the forum LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/a-panel-on-hurstons-herod-the-great/ Wed, 17 Sep 2025 23:34:15 -0400 Greetings LLC Forum! I am looking for one presenter and one presider for a panel on Hurston’s latest novel “The Life of Herod the Great.”  I have until tomorrow to finalize the panel. -RF.

]]> 0 41d441d8ccd5734b9d09c50076adb629 Kristin Moriah started the topic Un-Bioed: Radically Reimagining Black Women's Lives in the discussion LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/un-bioed-radically-reimagining-black-womens-lives/ Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:13:35 -0500 Un-Bioed: Radically Reimagining Black Women’s Lives

This 2-day conference is an opportunity to celebrate and expand the community of Black women’s life writers. Black women’s life writing has been among the fastest-growing literary subgenres in the past several years. Long before this explosion of memoirs and biographies on and by Black women…[Read more]

]]> 0 501218b58df0ba4e4215593dc398ca26 McKinley Melton started the topic SMU - Kahn Chair in the Humanities in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/smu-kahn-chair-in-the-humanities/ Sat, 18 Nov 2023 01:47:15 -0500 The Department of English at Southern Methodist University invites outstanding applicants for a tenured appointment at the rank of advanced Associate or early Full Professor to the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Chair in Humanities beginning August 1, 2024. The field is open. We welcome candidates in any and all fields of literary study in English,…[Read more]

]]> 0 98a66eecda762d6f8ee9a3a3c9f266a5 Samantha Pergadia started the topic SMU Job in African American Literature and Urban Studies in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/smu-job-in-african-american-literature-and-urban-studies/ Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:16:36 -0500 Dear colleagues,

I wanted to pass along this job ad for an assistant professor position in African American literature, joined to an urban studies research cluster.

Please do pass it along to anyone who pay be a good fit and encourage them to apply.

https://joblist.mla.org/job-<wbr />details/7961/assistant-<wbr…[Read more]

]]> 0 0e03b0ed5a8ad34a89b35be39d7d4337 Frank D. Rashid started the topic The Marygrove African American Literature Collection (MAAAC) in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/the-marygrove-african-american-literature-collection-maaac/ Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:56:53 -0500 The Marygrove Conservancy announces the Marygrove African American Authors Collection (MAAAC), a digitized archive of video recordings, photographs, printed materials, and teaching resources generated by the Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series (CAALS).  The MAAAC was developed with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for…[Read more]

]]> 0 f51352f967f884885e3b283540e3cd83 Jonathan Senchyne deposited Introduction: Infrastructures of African American Print in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1855436/ Thu, 17 Aug 2023 01:24:11 -0400 “The essays in this volume attend to both of these possible relations to the infrastructures of inscription. They explore not only how white supremacist histories and infrastructures have limited and foreclosed black expression but also how black expression has extended, recoded, and transformed some of these very structures, affording new possibilities.”

]]> 0 f98f0881356b5a8439e51e11a3e5548e John Gruesser deposited Humanities in Five: A Literary Life of Sutton E. Griggs: The Man on the Firing Line PowerPoint in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1827263/ Wed, 21 Dec 2022 02:28:33 -0500 Based in the South throughout his career, the Black Baptist minister Sutton E. Griggs wrote nearly fifty books and pamphlets, including five novels, nearly all of which he issued through his own publishing companies. Griggs was a founder of American Baptist Theological Seminary, which several Civil Rights Movement leaders attended in the 1950s.…[Read more]

]]> 0 524407946646a82987bee7cd46dfa57e John Gruesser deposited Humanities in Five: A Literary Life of Sutton E. Griggs: The Man on the Firing Line (Oxford University Press 2022) Text in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1826930/ Sun, 18 Dec 2022 03:55:08 -0500 Based in the South throughout his career, the Black Baptist minister Sutton E. Griggs (1872-1933) wrote nearly fifty books and pamphlets, including five novels, almost all of which he issued through his own publishing companies. Griggs was a founder of American Baptist Theological Seminary, which several Civil Rights Movement leaders attended in…[Read more]

]]> 0 f90597c7c5f15d4730b83d1314663ac7 John Gruesser deposited Humanities in Five: A Literary Life of Sutton E. Griggs: The Man on the Firing Line (Oxford University Press 2022) PowerPoint in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1826927/ Sun, 18 Dec 2022 03:48:43 -0500 Based in the South throughout his career, the Black Baptist minister Sutton E. Griggs wrote nearly fifty books and pamphlets, including five novels, almost all of which he issued through his own publishing companies. Griggs was a founder of American Baptist Theological Seminary, which several Civil Rights Movement leaders attended in the 1950s.…[Read more]

]]> 0 5dfbf0583edfb5020b9e86a57414a89b Gabrielle Dean started the topic Society for Textual Scholarship 2023 Conference: Design and Text in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/society-for-textual-scholarship-2023-conference-design-and-text-6/ Tue, 06 Dec 2022 02:30:03 -0500 The Society for Textual Scholarship welcomes proposals from textual scholars, editors, designers, curators, and digital humanists across the disciplines for its upcoming in-person conference on the theme of Design and Text, June 1-3 2023, hosted by The New School, New York, NY. For CFP guidelines, please see the attached or visit the STS website…[Read more]

]]> 0 b20cbdbdaef1b400b7c91d4feabc9043 Patrick Chura started the topic Call for Essays on African American Literature and Culture in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/call-for-essays-on-african-american-literature-and-culture/ Thu, 17 Mar 2022 19:05:01 -0400 The non-profit digital scholarly database The Literary Encyclopedia was founded in 1998 to provide a scholarly online resource for university-level teaching and research. 

We are in the process of expanding our offerings in the field of African American Literature and Culture.  

We’re interested in commissioning reference articles (2,000…[Read more]

]]> 0 54c8ed90d242cafefb7b73d2469fc11d Delia Steverson started the topic MLA 2023 CFP Passages of Water and Labor Cultures of the Coastal South in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/mla-2023-cfp-passages-of-water-and-labor-cultures-of-the-coastal-south-2/ Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:37:31 -0500 Passages of Water and Labor Cultures of the Coastal South and the Caribbean

In Edwidge Danticat’s short story “Without Inspection,” an undocumented Haitian immigrant, Arnold, dies from unsafe working conditions at a construction site in south Florida. In the news coverage about the event, the construction company and developer release a state…[Read more]

]]> 0 4b976146353e87c9c256e57a2b7c653a Delia Steverson started the topic MLA 2023 CFP Disability and Public Health in the U.S. South in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/mla-2023-cfp-disability-and-public-health-in-the-u-s-south-2/ Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:34:52 -0500 Disability and Public Health in the U.S. South 

A key part of colonizing in the U.S. South depended on the rhetoric of health, such as Ponce de Leon’s mythical fountain of youth and nineteenth-century boosterism claiming Florida as the “winter sanitarium of the country” (qtd in Knight 5). The semi-tropical warmth of the South invited justif…[Read more]

]]> 0 6c9ceaeac0bb6fd1c54da196a77f8bbe Aldon Lynn Nielsen deposited Of Dr. Shelby Steele and Others in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1769327/ Thu, 27 Jan 2022 02:28:55 -0500 A sharply critical response to Shelby Steele’s first book, The Content of Our Character.

]]> 0 f79ffbb20a2e4d37cd17c24777f85012 Rielle Navitski started the topic Asst. Prof. - African American Theatre and Performance - University of Georgia in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/asst-prof-african-american-theatre-and-performance-university-of-georgia/ Fri, 14 Jan 2022 19:44:52 -0500 The University of Georgia Department of Theatre and Film Studies and the Institute for African American Studies seek an assistant professor whose scholarly research focuses on African American theatre and performance. Additional areas of specialization might include African American film, performance methods based in Afrocentric…[Read more]

]]> 0 92e472efbc581080ced082ad6b079c27 Charles L. Leavitt IV deposited Impegno nero: gli intellettuali italiani e la lotta afroamericana in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1764612/ Tue, 04 Jan 2022 03:49:24 -0500 In the aftermath of the Second World War, Italian intellectuals participated in Italy’s reconstruction with an ideological commitment inspired by the African-American struggle for equal rights in the United States. Drawing on the work of authors including Italo Calvino, Giorgio Caproni, Cesare Pavese, and Elio Vittorini, this essay argues that p…[Read more]

]]> 0 4fb2c598ec5031cf34533e58d3c3a9f1 Danica Savonick deposited The Pedagogical Legacy of bell hooks in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1763724/ Fri, 24 Dec 2021 02:24:55 -0500 This article reflects on the pedagogical legacy of bell hooks.

]]> 0 7977e11c525b93a71b69c295f313333f Derrick R. Spires started the topic CFP: New Citizenship Studies (special issue of American Literature) in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/cfp-new-citizenship-studies-special-issue-of-american-literature/ Mon, 29 Nov 2021 20:54:38 -0500 Greetings colleagues (with apologies for cross-posting),

Please share the CFP for our co-edited special issue of American Literature: New Citizenship Studies. Essay submissions are due June 9, 2022. See information below and attached. Feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

Thanks,
Carrie Hyde (UCLA) and Derrick R. Spires (Cornell…[Read more]

]]> 0 2ae4ec9bc678c53e6bf71000e0b48158 Kristin Moriah started the topic Tenure-Track Faculty Assistant Professor, McGill University in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/tenure-track-faculty-assistant-professor-mcgill-university/ Wed, 03 Nov 2021 13:11:29 -0400 The Department of English at McGill University invites applications for a tenure-track position in African-Canadian and/or African-American Literatures. We welcome candidates who specialize in Black diasporic, transnational, and global Black literatures, cultures, and media. We likewise welcome applications from candidates across the full…[Read more]

]]> 0 292b84c47f1a0fc79e7a5d618fa49e02 Nicholas T Rinehart deposited Lateral Reading Lyric Testimony; or, The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in the Americas in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1753046/ Tue, 28 Sep 2021 02:24:16 -0400 Canon, tradition, and origin anchor developmental accounts of Black literary history, describing the forward movement from a singular beginning in terms of birth, maturation, and inheritance. This model delimits a specialized field of study, but also obscures texts, practices, and archives that do not cohere with it. In the study of slave…[Read more]

]]> 0 01b028cc2ff99ea15f0c2c10ba60063e Kristin Moriah deposited On the Record: Sissieretta Jones and Black Feminist Recording Praxes in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1727470/ Sun, 14 Feb 2021 03:53:50 -0500 In this article, I examine how Sissieretta Jones (frequently described as America’s first Black superstar, among other superlatives) strategically leveraged her European performance reviews in order to increase her listenership and wages in the United States. Jones toured Europe for the first (and only) time from February until November in 1895. A…[Read more]

]]> 0 9e3bce4b29ca22cda4384f79139fc2eb Whit Frazier Peterson deposited A Magnificent Blond Beast: Exploring the Implications of Harlem Renaissance Writer Wallace Thurman as Ghostwriter of a Forgotten Celebrity Gossip Memoir in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1723207/ Fri, 15 Jan 2021 02:24:04 -0500 In an early version of his article “Harlem Literati in the Twenties,” first published in the Saturday Evening Review in 1940, Langston Hughes offers the curious suggestion that Wallace Thurman was the ghostwriter of Men, Marriage and Me (erroneously written as Men, Women and Checks in Hughes’ article), the tell-all memoir ostensibly by the origi…[Read more]

]]> 0 5f33de95a31ee3d9fbd08dfa53482ce3 Jervette Ward started the topic 2021 MLA LLC African American Forum-Linked Virtual Panels in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/2021-mla-llc-african-american-forum-linked-virtual-panels/ Tue, 05 Jan 2021 23:05:39 -0500 The attached documents provide a list with links to the 2021 MLA LLC African American Forum-Linked Virtual Panels.

]]> 0 b9133025616d788cb2630ff029de32db Kate Pond deposited “Sapience” The (Attempted) Making of a Modern Myth: Storybuilding as a Component of Social Justice in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1719676/ Sat, 12 Dec 2020 02:30:39 -0500 This autoethnographic exploration, describes and reflects upon my attempt to crowdsource a modern myth on the origins of racism in America. It draws on my work in narrative studies with a special focus on stories and their role in human development. Part one is analysis of the ‘functions’ of story as both plot variables and sociological act…[Read more]

]]> 0 ccaa3cb474ec32e4066ff50878270253 Jervette Ward started the topic MLA Elections Close TODAY!!! in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/mla-elections-close-today/ Thu, 10 Dec 2020 16:22:30 -0500 Don’t forget that MLA elections close today!

Don’t forget to vote for the new member of the LLC African American Forum Executive Committee and for the MLA Executive Council among other elections.

https://www.mla.org/About-Us/Governance/Elections/Nominations-for-2020-MLA-Elections

]]> 0 6528989a07a9ae800f84711c8e840e83 Kate Pond started the topic seeking participants for my thesis project in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/seeking-participants-for-my-thesis-project/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 15:52:42 -0400 I’m attempting to collect a number of micro-stories in order to deconstruct them by their morphological functions and rebuild one story from the crowd-sourced content. I am hopeful for a diverse representation, but looking for more voices. I would really appreciate if you have 30 minutes or so, that you help contribute to my…[Read more]

]]> 0 a0984e42183cb9b751b1a44790ca07c7 Jervette Ward started the topic CFP Women and Language in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/cfp-women-and-language-6/ Wed, 06 May 2020 20:48:44 -0400 https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/

 

Call for Papers | Women & LanguageEditor: Leland G. Spencer, PhD | Miami University Women & Language, an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal publishes original scholarly articles and creative work covering all aspects of communication, language, and gender. Contributions to…[Read more]

]]> 0 7f8abeaac0cc59013453f3b9bf60bbab Jonathan Senchyne deposited Under Pressure: Reading Material Textuality in the Recovery of Early African American Print Work in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1685484/ Tue, 28 Apr 2020 03:52:33 -0400 From 1756 until his death in the early 1790s, Primus Fowle, an enslaved African American, performed typographical and press work involved the in the publication of The New-Hampshire Gazette and other materials printed at the press owned by Daniel Fowle. With the archive of print Primus Fowle created as its object of study, this essay historicizes…[Read more]

]]> 0 4eb7c6316c37b682038c8f3080a5c19c Charles L. Leavitt IV deposited Impegno nero: Italian Intellectuals and the African-American Struggle in the group LLC African American Forum https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1685363/ Mon, 27 Apr 2020 03:56:43 -0400 In the aftermath of the Second World War, Italian intellectuals participated in Italy’s reconstruction
with an ideological commitment inspired by the African-American struggle for equal rights in the
United States. Drawing on the work of many of the leading figures in postwar Italian culture,
including Italo Calvino, Giorgio Caproni, Cesare P…[Read more]

]]> 0 26deebe648242abf54279452752aa589 Ifeoma C. Kiddoe Nwankwo started the topic In Memoriam: African American Literary and Scholarly Greats in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/in-memoriam-african-american-literary-and-scholarly-greats/ Sun, 05 Apr 2020 20:24:40 -0400 Submit 300-word abstracts for an In Memoriam Panel celebrating and critically engaging with the works and legacies of recently departed writers and scholars to jervette@gmail.com by April 6.

LLC African American Forum

]]> 0 fdf9a266f7bcb04149a9f2c6ea45447f Jervette Ward replied to the topic MLA LLC African American 2021 Panels - Toronto in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/mla-llc-african-american-2021-panels-toronto/#post-1023572 Thu, 05 Mar 2020 01:43:13 -0500 <p style=”text-align: center;”>LLC African American Forum</p>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>Call for Papers for MLA 2021 in Toronto</p>
 

Theories of Black Women Intellectualism in the Nineteenth Century

Inviting talks on diverse iterations of intellectual thought amongst C19th Black women thinkers; Intellectual productions beyond the usual…[Read more]

]]> 0 51e4cd06d198b40e15c8815d51e19a07 Jervette Ward started the topic CFPs -- MLA LLC African American 2021 Panels - Toronto in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/cfps-mla-llc-african-american-2021-panels-toronto/ Thu, 05 Mar 2020 01:40:01 -0500 <p style=”text-align: center;”>LLC African American Forum</p>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>Call for Papers for MLA 2021 in Toronto</p>
 

Theories of Black Women Intellectualism in the Nineteenth Century

Inviting talks on diverse iterations of intellectual thought amongst C19th Black women thinkers; Intellectual productions beyond the usual…[Read more]

]]> 0 be2c62357936c3acdae0e38ff0355acd Travis M. Foster deposited Genre and White Supremacy in the Postemancipation United States, Introduction in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1676324/ Sat, 25 Jan 2020 16:34:19 -0500 Introduction to Genre and White Supremacy in the Postemancipation United States (Oxford UP, 2019).

If your library doesn’t already own a copy, please consider submitting a purchase request.

Full citation: Travis M. Foster, Genre and White Supremacy in the Postemancipation United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

]]> 0 e7ac8c1a11311be2e69fdd0071e87c7e Jervette Ward started the topic MLA LLC African American 2021 Panels - Toronto in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/mla-llc-african-american-2021-panels-toronto/ Sun, 12 Jan 2020 04:00:29 -0500 LLC African American will be soliciting suggestions for our panels for MLA 2021 via Humanities/MLA Commons — Stay Tuned!!!

]]> 0 95426d8958e836b0172fadb63e223aad Shane Graham started the topic CFP: Langston Hughes Review Special Issue—"'The Negro Speaks of Rivers' at 100" in the discussion LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/african-american/forum/topic/cfp-langston-hughes-review-special-issue-the-negro-speaks-of-rivers-at-100/ Sun, 24 Nov 2019 18:26:53 -0500 Langston Hughes Review
Guest Editor: Shane Graham
Expected Publication: May 2021

In June 1921, Crisis published Langston Hughes’ first adult poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” In many ways it contained the blueprint for the poet’s entire subsequent career, and established many of his key themes: black pride and self-assertion; the validat…[Read more]

]]> 0 9093c116d73ee361f707b189f9b08a2c Anne Donlon deposited Introduction to Four Poems from Langston Hughes’s Spanish Civil War Verse in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1666201/ Fri, 11 Oct 2019 16:31:48 -0400 Introduction to four poems written by Langston Hughes during the Spanish Civil War, published in the Little-Known Documents section of PMLA.

The introduction alongside the text of the four poems can be found on the PMLA’s site: https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2019.134.3.562.

]]> 0 86d22c88e91c3e41e4a674f2f369b2b9 Kathryn Chew uploaded the file: Health Humanities Tenure-track position, specialization in Disability Studies to LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1663746/ Tue, 17 Sep 2019 19:37:20 -0400 The Comparative World Literature program at CSULB is excited to announce a new tenure-track position. We are looking for a colleague whose research is in the medical or health humanities and who could teach courses in our health humanities minor (that we are constructing at this very moment), such as Literature and Medicine. We are particularly…[Read more]

]]> 0 315507575ea8462abc6a6933ea0835f9 Marisa Parham deposited 'Freedom, Equality, and Race’: Remembering Jeffrey B. Ferguson in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1657607/ Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:37:16 -0400 This essay begins with my attempt to close-read a text by a recently departed colleague, Jeffrey B. Ferguson, but turns into an exploration of writing across registers, in this case the delivery of a very different version of the same paper by Ferguson, one that is far more intimate, insightful, and moving.

]]> 0 3ec742b04c1c309befc9b7c8e3763cc7 Marisa Parham deposited Breadfruit, Time and Again: Glissant Reads Faulkner in the World Relation in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1657605/ Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:31:38 -0400 Two-thirds of the way through Faulkner, Mississippi, his extended meditation on the prose oeuvre of the American writer William Faulkner, Édouard Glissant remarks on Faulkner’s famous ‘amused refusal to “correct the contradictions”’ introduced into his texts through his constant revisiting of characters across novels not necessarily set in proper…[Read more]

]]> 0 c31d8afb266e37f16b65b7f0e41ddd62 Whit Frazier Peterson deposited The Afrofuturist Historical Novel in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1643099/ Sun, 23 Jun 2019 16:25:50 -0400 The recent surge of interest in Afrofuturism has resulted in some groundbreaking work looking at the ways technology and race intersect in film, fashion, music and literature, as is evidenced by the important collection of essays “Afrofuturism 2.0” (2016), edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones. However there has not yet been an aca…[Read more]

]]> 0 5db9e0b841091da3db6a3732280a5d97 Marisa Parham deposited 17, or, Tough, Dark, Vulnerable, Moody: James Baldwin in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1641727/ Wed, 05 Jun 2019 16:31:57 -0400 In its encounter with James Baldwin across form— “Letter to my nephew,” “Sonny’s Blues,” and archival footage of Baldwin being interviewed by the psychologist Kenneth Clark— this article offers an exploration of how Baldwin’s figuration of children and his own acts of care illuminate the political possibilities of both filiation and aff…[Read more]

]]> 0 185f89c914e35a7dd5469ef9831eef54 Marisa Parham deposited Hughes, Cullen, and the In-sites of Loss in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1641714/ Wed, 05 Jun 2019 16:26:27 -0400 This essay explores how Pierre Nora’s sites of memory work a specific cultural function through what Melvin Dixon refers to as “a memory that ultimately rewrites history.” I look at two of the most well-known poems of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and Countee Cullen’s “Heritage,” one of which reveals a…[Read more]

]]> 0 d5476d729739f8d41e39f8259f95c9ae Marisa Parham deposited 'You Can't Flow Over This': Ursula Rucker's Acoustic Illusion in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1641074/ Tue, 28 May 2019 16:31:11 -0400 This essay brings together two texts, a letter to the editor written in experimental prose by the Black avant-garde Beat poet, Bob Kaufman, and “The Unlocking,” a spoken-word poem written and performed by Ursula Rucker that appears at the end of The Roots’ critically acclaimed rap album, Do You Want More??!?. By using the aural to disrupt expec…[Read more]

]]> 0 80a8a5677e4937edfd2c8a0d945b1edf Marisa Parham deposited Saying “Yes”: Textual Traumas in Octavia Butler’s Kindred in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1640726/ Wed, 22 May 2019 16:27:40 -0400 The problem of the “yes,” of affirming an historical identity that is potentially harmful to oneself, troubles some of the imaginative leaps necessary to how readers desire to identify with texts. With that in mind, this article reads Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel Kindred as a story about memory, history, and embodiment as written both on and thr…[Read more]

]]> 0 4bcc694fcd54ec9eda0cdd5cb49e0c2e John E. Drabinski deposited Vernaculars of Home in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1640380/ Fri, 17 May 2019 03:48:44 -0400 This essay examines James Baldwin’s conception of what he calls “black English” and its link to historical and cultural identity. I link Baldwin’s defense of black English to his reflections on the sor- row songs and sound, which draws on long-standing accounts of musicality as the foundation of the African-American tradition. In order to demonst…[Read more]

]]> 0 14656c66442e241a3da0146e6c1ac2d9 Nicholas Rinehart deposited Richard Wright's Globalism in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1638344/ Mon, 15 Apr 2019 03:57:08 -0400 This essay takes a long view of Wright’s work, arguing that his racial consciousness always extended beyond national boundaries and was forged from a globalist perspective. This outlook is not, as some critics have maintained, a late-stage development in Wright’s career, but rather the predominant theme that unites his oeuvre with a single con…[Read more]

]]> 0 8eca04a80767987bcf25fe1093af1c96 Charlie Gleek deposited Centuries of Black Artists' Books in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1638104/ Sat, 13 Apr 2019 16:43:35 -0400 Black artists have created, modified, or otherwise treated the book as an object of aesthetic expression since at least the nineteenth century. African American artists’ production and circulation of friendship albums and scrapbooks, democratic multiples and artist publishing, accordion folds, enclosures, and fine printing editions, all work to…[Read more]

]]> 0 93e05aae1eab17aff7e059e59f25c8b7 Jesse A. Goldberg deposited Slavery’s Ghosts and the Haunted Housing Crisis: On Narrative Economy and Circum-Atlantic Memory in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1628093/ Sun, 06 Jan 2019 16:36:59 -0500 In light of (re)new(ed) interest in focusing interdisciplinary scholarly attention on the history of capitalism – a focus captured in Edward Baptist’s recent book, The Half has Never Been Told – this essay reads Toni Morrison’s 2008 novel A Mercy as a key text for considering the history of capitalism as central to conceptions of circum-…[Read more]

]]> 0 2811051d0112995246e694bf9da88de2 Laura Helton deposited The Question of Recovery: An Introduction in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1622741/ Fri, 02 Nov 2018 03:53:24 -0400 This special issue of Social Text takes as its starting point the generative tension between recovery as an imperative that is fundamental to historical writing and research, and the impossibility of recovery when engaged with archives whose very assembly and organization occlude certain historical subjects. Responding to recent debates among…[Read more]

]]> 0 f04cd1f98f1b314027af7ab1bb62d260 Charlie Gleek deposited Writing History: 19th Century African American Activism in the group LLC African American https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1614984/ Fri, 10 Aug 2018 13:51:05 -0400 Our work in this course will center around two questions. First, what were the material and social conditions for Black men, women, and children living in the territory that would become the United States, from roughly 1750 until on or about 1860? While slavery is likely the first concept that comes to mind, additional concepts such as racism,…[Read more]

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