African American Writers

A selective bibliography of open access articles, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Sites

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Authors

Angelou, Maya

Baldwin, James

Baraka, Amiri

Brooks, Gwendolyn

Brown, Sterling

Cullen, Countee

Dove, Rita

Dunbar, Paul Laurence

Ellison, Ralph

Fauset, Jessie

Harlem Renaissance

Hayden, Robert

Hughes, Langston

Hurston, Zora Neale

Johnson, James Weldon

Kaufman, Bob

Kincaid, Jamaica

Larsen, Nella

Lorde, Audre

McKay, Claude

Morrison, Toni

Toomer, Jean

Walker, Alice

Wilson, August

Wright, Richard


General articles and resources

Fisher, Dexter and Robert B. Stepto. A review of Afro-American Literature: The Reconstruction of Instruction. "The Birth of a Black New Criticism." Reviewed by John Edgar Tidwell in Callaloo, No. 7 (Oct., 1979), pp. 109-112

Gates, H.L. Negroes Old, Negroes New: On Afro-American Modernism. Gates discusses the history of the African-American anthology in connection with Chant of Saints: A Gathering of Afro-American Literature, Art, and Scholarship , ed. Michael S. Harper and Robert B. Stepto. In ADE Bulletin 064 (May 1980): 34-36

Gates, H.L., and Nellie McKay (eds.) A discussion with the general editors of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature on the PBS Newshour, March 5, 1997

Harris, Trudier. A review of South of Tradition: Essays on African American Literature. (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2002.) Reviewed in College Literature, Winter 2005 by Williams, Jessica

Harris, Trudier. Publisher's page for From Mammies to Militants: Domestics in Black American Literature (Temple Univ. Press, 1982)

McKay, Nellie. "African American Literature: Past, Present, Future" A forum on the PBS Newshour, Tuesday, March 18, 1997

Documenting the American South, an extensive online, searchable collection of material from the Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill library

The Antislavery Literature Project on the eserver, Univ. of Iowa

The Race and Ethnicity Collection on the eserver, Univ. of Iowa, contains reference material, essays, and other material on race and ethnicity in the United States

A PBS presentation on African American literature includes text and video clips, and covers writers from slavery times, through the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement, and includes a chapter on photographer Gordon Parks

"Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery." From a PBS series, October 1998, includes a teacher's guide

Teaching resources for Black History month from publisher Gale Group has biographies of over 50 African Americans and other teaching materials

An list of web resources for African American writers and literature, from the Bluefield (W. Va.) State College library

An extensive list of "best of the web" sites on African Americans, from "Digital Librarian"

Article on Alain Locke (September 13, 1886 - June 10, 1954), who played an important role in identifying, nurturing, and publishing the works of young black artists during the New Negro Movement. Includes secondary bibliography. From the Washington, DC Library

Historical Overviews of The Black Arts Movement, by Kaluma ya Salaam, at Modern American Poetry (Univ. of Ill.)


Bibliography

Selected Bibliography Of Afro-American Literature, compiled by Jerry W. Ward, Jr., Tougaloo College. ADE Bulletin (MLA) 078 (Summer 1984)

African-American Literature to 1925: A Short Selected Secondary. From Dr. Donna Campbell

Primary and secondary reading list for African American literature from a University of Leeds class on African American texts

Reading list for PhD exam in African American Literature from Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill


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