| Description |
1 online resource |
| Series |
Callaloo African Diaspora Series |
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Callaloo African diaspora series.
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| Contents |
pt. 1 WORLD ENOUGH FOR A FIGURE -- 1. Broken Witness -- Concrete Poetry and a Poetics of Unsaying -- 2. Establishing Synchronisms -- Sycorax Video Style and the Plural Instant -- 3. Between Now and Yet -- Postlyric Poetry and the Moment of Expression -- pt. 2 ABOVE WHERE SOUND LEAVES OFF -- 4. Sing It in My Voice -- Blues, Irony, and a Politics of Affirmative Difference -- 5. Exploding Dimensions of Song -- The Utopian Poetics of the Cut |
| Summary |
"Standard literary criticism tends to either ignore or downplay the unorthodox tradition of black experimental writing that emerged in the wake of protests against colonization and Jim Crow-era segregation. Histories of African American literature likewise have a hard time accounting for the distinctiveness of experimental writing, which is part of a general shift in emphasis among black writers away from appeals for social recognition or raising consciousness. In Freedom Time--the second book to appear in the Callaloo African Diaspora Series--Anthony Reed offers a theoretical reading of "black experimental writing" that understands the term both as a profound literary development and as a concept with which to analyze the ways that writing challenges us to rethink the relationships between race and literary techniques. Through extended analyses of works by African American and Afro-Caribbean writers--including N.H. Pritchard, Suzan-Lori Parks, NourbeSe Philip, Kamau Brathwaite, Claudia Rankine, Douglas Kearney, Harryette Mullen, and Nathaniel Mackey--Reed develops a new sense of the literary politics of formally innovative writing and the connections between literature and politics since the 1960s. Freedom Time reclaims the power of experimental black voices by arguing that, if literature fundamentally serves the human need for freedom in expression, then readers and critics must see it as more than a mere reflection of the politics of social protest and identity formation. With an approach informed by literary, cultural, African American, and feminist studies, Reed shows how reworking literary materials and conventions liberates writers to push the limits of representation and expression"-- Provided by publisher |
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"In Freedom Time, Anthony Reed reclaims the power of black experimental poetry and prose by arguing that if literature fundamentally serves the human need for freedom in expression, then readers and critics must see it as something other than a reflection of the politics of social protest and identity formation. Prior to the successful campaigns against Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. and colonization in the Caribbean, literary politics seemed much more obviously interventionist. As more African Americans and Afro-Caribbean writers gained access to formal political power, more writing emerged whose political concerns went beyond improving racial representation, appealing for social recognition, raising consciousness, or commenting on the political disillusion and fragmentation of the post-segregation and post-colonial moments. Through formal innovation and abstraction, writers increasingly pushed the limits of representation and expression in order to extend the limits of thought and literary possibility. Reed offers a theoretical account of this new "black experimental writing," which is at once a literary historical development, and a concept with which to analyze the ways writing engages race and the possibilities of expression. One of his key interventions is arguing that form drives the politics literature, not vice-versa. Through extended analyses of works by N.H. Pritchard, NourbeSe Philip, Kamau Brathwaite, Claudia Rankine, Douglas Kearney, Harryette Mullen, Suzan-Lori Parks and Nathaniel Mackey, Freedom Time draws out the political implication of their innovative approaches to literary aesthetics"-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
English |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
American literature -- African American authors -- History and criticism
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Literature, Experimental -- United States -- History and criticism
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- Semiotics & Theory.
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POETRY -- American -- African American.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- African American.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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American literature -- African American authors
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Literature, Experimental
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United States
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UNITED STATES.
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781421415215 |
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1421415216 |
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