New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers is a collection of critical and pedagogical essays that shed new light on the creative depths of Black women writers. On the one hand, some Black women writers have been heavily anthologized, they have more often than not been restricted by critical metanarratives. Some of their works have been lionized while others remain neglected. On the other hand, some Black women writers have been ignored and understudied. This collection corrects the gaps in our critical thinking about Black women writers by introducing them to a new generation of undergraduate and graduate students, and by presenting pedagogical essays to our colleagues currently working in the field.
LaToya Jefferson-James is assistant professor of English at Mississippi Valley State University.
Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Eschewing Social Science and Defying Categorization: An Introduction to Contemporary Black Women Writers LaToya Jefferson-James Chapter 1: "You Can't Run from the Street": Failed Escapes in Ann Petry's The Street (1947) and Shay Youngblood's Black Girl in Paris (2000) Shahara'Tova V. Dente Chapter 2: You Can't Shut Me Up: Using Gwendolyn Brooks to Help Me Be Seen and Heard Carissa McCray Chapter 3: Kathleen Collins: BAM Filmmaker and Fiction Writer Cynthia Davis Chapter 4: Closed in Silence and Clothed in Heteronormativity and the (Anti)Lesbian Embrace: The Woman's Plight in Gayl Jones' Eva's Man and "The Women" Georgene Bess Montgomery Chapter 5: Grange's Grapple and Brownfield's Battle: Redefining Manhood in Alice Walker's Third Life of Grange Copeland Lana N. Lockhart Chapter 6: Reconnections to Gendered Black Identities in Alice Walker's The World Will Follow Joy Linda Mustafa Chapter 7: Womanist Freedom Dreams: 'Stay on the Battlefield' by Sonia Sanchez and Sweet Honey in the Rock Michael C. Montesano Chapter 8: Mothers Incognito in Toni Morrison's Paradise Linda Mustafa Chapter 9: Love in a Time of Pretentiousness: The Social and Personal Consequences of Romance in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah Anna E. Schmidt Chapter 10: Endless Love: The Evolution of Healers in Octavia Butler's Patternist Series Ebony Gibson Chapter 11: "I Would Restore What Could Be Restored": Reclaiming Identity in Octavia Butler's Fledgling Rashell Smith-Spears Chapter 12: Audre Lorde's Zami as a Speculative Womanist Guide to Self- Actualization in Octavia Butler's Dawn Roslyn Nicole Smith Chapter 13: Arc of Memory in Natasha Trethewey's Works Nagueyalti Warren Chapter 14: Seen and Unseen: The Role of the Venus in N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season Jasmine H. Wade Chapter 15: Eco-Justice as Womanist Practice in Contemporary Black Women's Poetry Marta Werbanowska Chapter 16: Who Fears Death: Necropolitics, Gender, and Radical Ontology in Africanfuturist Literature Venise N. Adjibodou Conclusion About the Contributors
