Reading Contemporary African American Literature: Black Womens Popular Fiction, Post-Civil Rights Experience, and the African American Canon

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Description

Reading Contemporary African American Literature focuses on the subject of contemporary African American popular fiction by women. Braggs study addresses why such work should be the subject of scholarly examination, describes the events and attitudes which account for the critical neglect of this body of work, and models a critical approach to such narratives that demonstrates the distinctive ways in which this literature captures the complexities of post-civil rights era black experiences. In making her arguments regarding the value of popular writing, Bragg argues that black womens popular fiction foregrounds gender in ways that are frequently missing from other modes of narrative production. They exhibit a responsiveness and timeliness to the shifting social terrain which is reflected in the rapidly shifting styles and themes which characterize popular fiction. In doing so, they extend the historical function of African American literature by continuing to engage the black body as a symbol of political meaning in the social context of the United States. In popular literature Beauty Bragg locates a space from which black women engage a variety of public discourses.

Reviews

Braggs new study offers support for those wishing to re-examine the incorporation of popular fiction in their classrooms or scholarship. This new analysis of popular fiction places popular fiction alongside historical writing movements, offers feminist approaches to understanding the goals of black women authors fiction, and gives scholars a new foundation to build upon. Popular fiction is needed in the classroom and the canon, and would be a welcome addition to scholarly studies. Those interested and working with, or even considering, popular fiction should pick this study up as a framework for analysis. * English: Journal of the English Association *
Beauty Bragg offers a concise, wonderfully readable, and persuasively argued black feminist study that forces us to reexamine our understandings of high and low in African American literature and culture. -- T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Vanderbilt University
Reading Contemporary African American Literature does the much-needed work required to help scholars and students alikeunderstand the ways popular fiction speaks to many of the same discourses serious literature explores. The unparalleled popularity of books likePushandColdest Winter Evernudgedus all to acquirean expanded understanding of the work popular fiction authored by African American women writers could doandin unprecedented waysfrombuilding new audiences to offering uncompromising critiques of systemic forces that enable poverty and abuse, to celebrating the beauty of African American life in all of its iterations. Here,Bragg takes an important first step in helping us tear down imaginedbarriers betweendiffering communities of readers whoappreciate the waysAfrican American women writers render the full range of these communities'experiences in narrative. -- Dana Williams, Howard University

Author Bio

Beauty Bragg is an associate professor in the department of English and rhetoric at Georgia College and State University.