Through a series of essays that explore the forms, themes, genres, historical contexts, major authors, and latest critical approaches, A Companion to African American Literature presents a comprehensive chronological overview of African American literature from the eighteenth century to the modern day
Examines African American literature from its earliest origins, through the rise of antislavery literature in the decades leading into the Civil War, to the modern development of contemporary African American cultural media, literary aesthetics, and political ideologies
Addresses the latest critical and scholarly approaches to African American literature
Features essays by leading established literary scholars as well as newer voices
"This book does, indeed, present a challenge to traditional African American studies, and will be a valuable resource for libraries catering for US literary, cultural and historical studies." (Reference Reviews, February 2011)
Review
“A master archivist and historian of African American literature, Gene Jarrett has assembled a compelling new collection of essays for this necessary addition to the study of African American writing and thought. The volume offers a comprehensive survey of the African American canon, but also goes in new directions, giving fresh emphasis to the earliest writing of African Americans as well as to the exciting field of Latino/-a writing in the African Diaspora. This is a field-defining collection.” — Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
“A Companion to African American Literature is a pathbreaking collection that will revolutionize the study of African American literature and literary culture. Written by leading established and emerging scholars in the field, the essays both provide a comprehensive overview of African American literary trends and preoccupations and challenge our conventional understanding of racial and national identities, literary genres, and intertextual influences. Accessible yet scholarly, this volume will be of enormous value to scholars, students, and general readers.” —Valerie Smith, Princeton University
Gene Andrew Jarrett is Professor and Chair of the English Department at Boston University, with affiliate university appointments in African American Studies and American and New England Studies. Jarrett earned his A.B. in English from Princeton University and his A.M. and Ph.D. in English from Brown University. His scholarship focuses on African American literary history, particularly the longstanding struggles of African American writers with racial representation, or the responsibility of portraying race in culturally and politically progressive ways. Taken together, Jarrett's authored and edited books examine racial representation in African American literature from the 18th century to the present.
Jarrett is the author of Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature (New York University Press, 2011) and Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
He is the editor of A Companion to African American Literature (Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2010); Claude McKay's 1937 autobiography A Long Way from Home (Multi-Ethnic Literature of the Americas Series, Rutgers University Press, 2007); and African American Literature beyond Race: An Alternative Reader (New York University Press, 2006).
He is also the co-editor of several books, including, with Herbert Woodward Martin and Ronald Primeau, The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Ohio University Press, 2009); with Henry Louis Gates Jr., The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation, and African American Culture, 1892-1938 (Princeton University Press, 2007); and with Thomas Lewis Morgan, The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Ohio University Press, 2005; paperback 2009).
Jarrett has published scholarly essays and book reviews in a host of venues, including the Chronicle of Higher Education, Publication of the Modern Language Association, American Literary History, African American Review, Nineteenth-Century Literature, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, American Literary Realism, The Blackwell Concise Companion to American Fiction, and The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass, among other academic journals and scholarly books.
Jarrett's scholarship has been supported by fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and, most recently, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. As 2010 Walter Jackson Bate Fellow in English Literature at Radcliffe, Jarrett began work on a definitive biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), looking at the literature, life, and times of the first professional African American writer, born in Dayton, Ohio.
