White Scholars/African American Texts

Published by Rutgers University Press 2005

White Scholars/African American Texts

Edited by: Lisa Long

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813537733

Overview
Contents

About this book

What makes someone an authority? What makes one person's knowledge more credible than another's? In the ongoing debates over racial authenticity, some attest that we can know each other's experiences simply because we are all "human," while others assume a more skeptical stance, insisting that racial differences create unbridgeable gaps in knowledge.

Bringing new perspectives to these perennial debates, the essays in this collection explore the many difficulties created by the fact that white scholars greatly outnumber black scholars in the study and teaching of African American literature. Contributors, including some of the most prominent theorists in the field as well as younger scholars, examine who is speaking, what is being spoken and what is not, and why framing African American literature in terms of an exclusive black/white racial divide is problematic and limiting.

In highlighting the "whiteness" of some African Americanists, the collection does not imply that the teaching or understanding of black literature by white scholars is definitively impossible. Indeed such work is not only possible, but imperative. Instead, the essays aim to open a much needed public conversation about the real and pressing challenges that white scholars face in this type of work, as well as the implications of how these challenges are met.

Author / Editor information

Lisa A. Long is an associate professor of English and the coordinator of the Gender & Women's Studies Program at North Central College.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
FOREWORD Nellie Y. Mckay Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction. White Scholars / African American Texts Lisa A. Long Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Naming the Problem That Led to the Question “Who Shall Teach African American Literature?” or, Are We Ready to Disband the Wheatley Court? Nellie Y. Mckay Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
PART ONE. Liberalism, Authority, and Authenticity
Theme for African American Literature B Russ Castronovo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
Race Walks in the Room White Teachers in Black Studies John Ernest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
Naming the Problem Embedded in the Problem That Led to the Question “Who Shall Teach African American Literature?” or, Are We Ready to Discard the Concept of Authenticity Altogether? Leslie W. Lewis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
Turning Impossibility into Possibility Teaching Ellison, Murray, and the Blues at Tuskegee Barbara A. Baker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
PART TWO. Training and Working in the Field
Before Positionality William L. Andrews Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
“Knowing Your Stuff,” Knowing Yourself April Conley Kilinski and Amanda M. Lawrence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
At Close Range Being Black and Mentoring Whites in African American Studies Barbara Mccaskill Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
PART THREE. Beyond Black and White
Faulty Analogies Queer White Critics Teaching African American Texts Sabine Meyer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
The Color of the Critic An Intervention in the Critical Debate in African American Theory on Interpretive Authority Nita N. Kumar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
Between Rome, Harlem, and Harlan Alessandro Portelli Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
The Stepsister and the Clan When the Native Teaches African American Literature Ngwarsungu Chiwengo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
PART FOUR. Case Studies
Twelve Years with Martin Delany A Confession Robert S. Levine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Master Thoughts Dale M. Bauer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
Writing about Gwendolyn Brooks Anyway James D. Sullivan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
Truth and Talent in Interpreting Ethnic American Autobiography From White to Black and Beyond Kimberly Rae Connor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
WORKS CITED Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 272

eBook

Published: September 2, 2005
ISBN: 9780813537733