Women's work : nationalism and contemporary African American women's novels / Courtney Thorsson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thorsson, Courtney, 1978-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--African American authors--History and criticism.

American fiction.

American fiction--African American authors.

American fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.

American fiction--Women authors.

African American women in literature.

National characteristics, American, in literature.

African American women--Employment--In literature.

African American women.

African American women--Employment.

Physical Description:

ix, 227 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2013.

Summary:

In Women's Work, Courtney Thorsson reconsiders the gender, genre, and geography of African American nationalism as she explores the aesthetic history of African American writing by women. Building on and departing from the Black Arts Movement, the literary fiction of such writers as Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, and Toni Morrison employs a cultural nationalism-practiced by their characters as "women's work"-that defines a distinct contemporary literary movement, demanding attention to the continued relevance of nation in post-Black Arts writing. Identifying five forms of women's work as organizing, dancing, mapping, cooking, and inscribing, Thorsson shows how these writers reclaimed and revised cultural nationalism to hail African America. Book jacket.

Contents:

Organizing her nation:Toni Cade Bambara's The salt eaters

Cooking up a nation: Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo

Dancing up a nation: Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the widow

Mapping and moving nation: Gloria Naylor's Mama day

Inscribing community: Toni Morrison's Paradise.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780813934471

0813934478

9780813934488

0813934486

OCLC:

824488927