The Norton Anthology of African American Literature
Parent Company: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Description of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature
“ If Norton anthologies define the canon, then, with the publication of this volume, African American literature is now assured inclusion… With a star lineup of coeditors, each section is introduced and edited by leading scholars who provide thoughtful overviews and analyses. Any anthology fights against space limitation, and although this one omits some significant works by Zora Neale Hurston and includes nothing by Gayl Jones, it fortunately publishes many longer texts in their entirety—e.g., Frederick
Douglass’s Narrative of the Life, W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls
of Black Folk, Jean Toomer’s Cane, Toni
Morrison’s Sula, August Wilson’s Fences, and
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” All collections. Copyright 1983 The H.W. Wilson Company. All rights reserved. Nine new writers The Second Edition includes nine new writers spanning
three centuries: Jupiter Hammon, Venture Smith, Martin Delany, Elizabeth Keckley,
Gayl Jones, Caryl Phillips, Edwidge Danticat, Colson Whitehead, and Harryette
Mullen. Thoroughly Revised "Literature Since 1975" Succeeding the late Barbara
Christian, new editor Cheryl A. Wall has included 5 new writers-poet Harryette
Mullen and fiction writers Gayl Jones, Caryl Phillips, Edwidge Danticat, and
Colson Whitehead. In addition, Wall has rewritten the period introduction and
many headnotes in their entirety and updated all apparatus. Course Guide by Joycelyn A. Moody, University of Washington Thoroughly
revised, the Course Guide is now a more helpful resource. It provides a wealth
of thematic approaches to teaching with The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature, teaching suggestions for individual works, questions and research
projects, bibliographic resources for all authors, and a special section on
teaching the vernacular traditions. Throughout, the Guide suggests ways to
integrate the content of the Audio Companion CDs with the printed texts. —This
text refers to the Paperback edition.
—D.J. Rosenthal, Choice
Henry Louis Gates Jr
General Editor
W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities,
Chair of the Afro-American Studies Department, Harvard University
University of Cambridge Ph.D.Nellie Y. McKay
General Editor
Professor of American and Afro-American Literature, University of
Wisconsin, Madison
Harvard Ph.D.
William Andrews
E. Maynard Adams Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Ph.D.Houston A. Baker Jr.
Albert M Greenfield Professor of Human Relations, Professor of English and
Director of the Center for the Study of Black Literature and Culture, University of
Pennsylvania
UCLA Ph.D.
Barbara T. Christian
Professor of African American Literature, University of California, Berkeley
Columbia University Ph.D.Frances Smith Foster
Professor of English and Women’s Studies, Emory University
University of California, San Diego Ph.D.
Deborah E. McDowell
Professor of English, University of Virginia
Purdue University Ph.D.Robert G. O’Meally
Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English, Columbia University
Harvard Ph.D.
Arnold Rampersad
Wood Wilson Professor of Literature and Director of the Program in African-American
Studies, Princeton University
Harvard Ph.D.
Hortense Spillers
Professor of English, Cornell University
Brandeis Ph.D.
Richard Yarborough
Associate Professor of English and Afro-American Studies, UCLA
Stanford Ph.D.
Book Description
Welcomed on publication as "brilliant, definitive, and a joy to teach from,"
(Russ Castronovo, University of Miami) The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature was adopted at more than 1,275 colleges and universities worldwide.
Now, the new Second Edition offers these highlights:
Strengthened Vernacular Tradition Building on the editors’ view that
vernacular expression lives in performance, the original Audio Companion CD has
been expanded to a two-CD set; Disc 1, Music, includes vocal and instrumental
pieces-from ragtime to Motown. Disc 2, Spoken Word, offers 24 speeches,
readings, and performances, from Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois to
Amiri Baraka and Rita Dove.
11 complete longer works Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and
Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa: But Resident Above Sixty Years in the
United States of America (new); Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an
Ex-Colored Man; Nella Larsen, Quicksand (new); Richard Wright, The Man Who Lived
Underground; Gwendolyn Brooks, Maud Martha; Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the
Sun; Amiri Baraka, Dutchman; Ed Bullins, Goin’a Buffalo: A Tragifantasy;
Adrienne Kennedy, A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White; August Wilson,
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (new).
Strengthened Apparatus and a More Readable Format
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