The Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature is a comprehensive collection of poems, short stories, novellas, novels, plays, autobiographies, and essays authored by African Americans from the eighteenth century until the present.  Evenly divided into two volumes, it is also the first such anthology to be conceived and published for both classroom and online education in the new millennium.  Reflects the current scholarly and pedagogic structure of African American literary studies Selects literary texts according to extensive research on classroom adoptions, scholarship, and the expert opinions of leading professors Organizes literary texts according to more appropriate periods of literary history, dividing them into seven sections that accurately depict intellectual, cultural, and political movements Includes more reprints of entire works and longer selections of major works than any other anthology of its kind This second volume contains a comprehensive collection of texts authored by African Americans from the 1920s to the present The two volumes of this landmark anthology can also be bought as a set, at over 20% savings.

Product Description: The Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature is a comprehensive collection of poems, short stories, novellas, novels, plays, autobiographies, and essays authored by African Americans from the eighteenth century until the present...read more

At long last, critics, scholars, and lovers of fiction can experience the full range and imaginative powers of the collected novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906). In these four novels, readers can explore the characters, landscape, atmosphere, and visionary sensibilities of this preeminent African American writer.In the prime of his literary career, between 1898 and 1902, Dunbar published The Uncalled, The Love of Landry, The Fanatics, and The Sport of the Gods. Despite widespread critical interest, the novels have been largely subordinated to his short stories and poetry. The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar redresses this imbalance by showing that the novels are also reflections of his exceptional literary talent. While correcting and standardizing the texts, the editors describe the major forms and themes of the novels, putting them in the proper contexts of Dunbar’s creativity, his professional career, and his place in American literary history. Each novel explores, in varying degrees, the issues of race, class, politics, region, morality, and spirituality and challenges the assumption that black novelists should cast only blacks as main characters and as messengers of racial-political unity.The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar presents all four novels under one cover for the first time, allowing readers to to assess why he was such a seminal influence on the twentieth century African American writers who followed him into the American canon. The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar will interest students, teachers, scholars, and general readers for generations to come.

The political value of African American literature has long been a topic of great debate among American writers, both black and white, from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama. In his compelling new book, Representing the Race, Gene Andrew Jarrett traces the genealogy of this topic in order to develop an innovative political history of African American literature. Jarrett examines texts of every sort pamphlets, autobiographies, cultural criticism, poems, short stories, and novels to parse the myths of authenticity, popular culture, nationalism, and militancy that have come to define African American political activism in recent decades. He argues that unless we show the diverse and complex ways that African American literature has transformed society, political myths will continue to limit our understanding of this intellectual tradition. Cultural forums ranging from the printing press, schools, and conventions, to parlors, railroad cars, and courtrooms provide the backdrop to this African American literary history, while the foreground is replete with compelling stories, from the debate over racial genius in early American history and the intellectual culture of racial politics after slavery, to the tension between copyright law and free speech in contemporary African American culture, to the political audacity of Barack Obama's creative writing. Erudite yet accessible, Representing the Race is a bold explanation of what's at stake in continuing to politicize African American literature in the new millennium.