Charles Johnsons Spiritual Imagination

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Charles Johnson's Spiritual Imagination

Author : Jonathan Little
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
ISBN 13 : 9780826211514
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (115 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles Johnson's Spiritual Imagination by : Jonathan Little

Download or read book Charles Johnson's Spiritual Imagination written by Jonathan Little and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first book-length study of Charles Johnson's work, Jonathan Little offers an engaging account of the artistic growth of one of the most important contemporary African American writers. From his beginnings as a political cartoonist through his receipt of the National Book Award for Middle Passage, Johnson's imagination has become increasingly spiritual. Little draws upon a wide array of sources, including short stories, interviews, reviews, articles, and cartoons, as he traces the brilliant achievement of this provocative artist who is very much at the height of his career. Charles Johnson's Spiritual Imagination begins with an analysis of Johnson's political cartoons from the late sixties and early seventies, when he was immersed in the Black Power Movement. Little shows that in these early cartoons one can already see Johnson's comic genius and his quest for unconstrained artistic freedom even when dealing with the highly charged issues of racial politics. By examining how Johnson incorporates the influences of phenomenology, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Romanticism into a strikingly original perspective on individual and social identity, Little chronicles Johnson's development. The book illuminates the progression of Johnson's aesthetics as he deals with the at times disturbing contrast between the hope offered by art and spirituality and the harsh realities of African American existence. As he situates Johnson within the tradition of African American literature, Little pairs each of his novels with a major precursor, including novels by Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, and such far-ranging sources as Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and the Ten Oxherding Pictures. These comparisons help to show Johnson's innovations within the African American literary tradition and include discussions of naturalism, realism, and modernism. This book will appeal to anyone interested in African American literature, spirituality, aesthetics, and the culture wars.

Understanding Charles Johnson

Author : Gary Storhoff
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 9781570035623
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (356 download)

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Book Synopsis Understanding Charles Johnson by : Gary Storhoff

Download or read book Understanding Charles Johnson written by Gary Storhoff and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Charles Johnson offers a critical introduction to the fiction of one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary writers and the first African American male since Ralph Ellison to win the National Book Award, which Johnson received in 1990 for Middle Passage. In addition to providing a biographical sketch, Gary Storhoff analyzes Johnson's four novels and two volumes of short stories. Describing his body of work as unique in American fiction, Storhoff explains how philosophical and religious orientations differentiate Johnson's writings and challenge his readers. Storhoff explores the merging of Johnson's philosophical and spiritual interests with his concern for African American culture. In identifying the literary principles of Johnson's texts, Storhoff emphasizes the writer's commitment to Buddhism and demonstrates its impact on his themes, characters, narratives, and rhetoric. Suggesting that Buddhism is the linchpin of Johnson's work, Storhoff acknowledges that scholars and critics are aware of Johnson's close association with the tradition but provides readers with what they need to appreciate fully its importance in his work. which includes a Ph.D. in the subject. Storhoff explicates the influence of the British empiricists, including Bishop George Berkeley, on the novelist; his rejection of relativism and utilitarianism; his adaptation of Aristotelian ethics; and his ambivalent treatment of American pragmatism as recently propounded by Cornel West. Johnson emerges from Storhoff's discussion as a profoundly eclectic, sophisticated, interdisciplinary writer, with complex views on race relations in the twenty-first century.

Charles Johnson's Novels

Author : Rudolph P. Byrd
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253111203
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles Johnson's Novels by : Rudolph P. Byrd

Download or read book Charles Johnson's Novels written by Rudolph P. Byrd and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-13 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is truly a major contribution to African American literary criticism, and it promises to elevate Johnson to the place in the literary firmament he so richly deserves." -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University Charles Johnson came of age during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. His fiction bears the imprint of his formal training as a philosopher and his work as a journalist and cartoonist with a well-honed interest in political satire. Mentored by the American writer John Gardner, Johnson is preoccupied with questions of morality, which are informed by his knowledge of Continental and Asian philosophical traditions. In this book, Rudolph Byrd examines Johnson's four novels -- Faith and the Good Thing, Oxherding Tale, Middle Passage (National Book Award Winner), and Dreamer -- under the rubric of philosophical black fiction, as art that interrogates experience. Byrd contends that Johnson suspends, shelves, and brackets all presuppositions regarding African American life. This bracketing accomplished, the African American experience becomes a pure field of appearances within two poles: consciousness and the people or phenomena to which it is related. Johnson's principal themes are identity and liberation. Intent upon the liberation of perception, for the reader and the writer, Johnson's fiction aims at "whole sight," encompassing a plurality of meanings across a symbolic geography of forms, texts, and traditions from within the matrix of African American life and culture. And like a palimpsest, Johnson's texts contain multiple layers of meaning of disparate origins imprinted over time with varying degrees of visibility and significance. Charles Johnson's Novels will appeal to fans of the writer's work, but it also will serve as a helpful guide for readers newly introduced to this brilliant contemporary American writer.

Charles Johnson's Fiction

Author : William R. Nash
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252027734
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (277 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles Johnson's Fiction by : William R. Nash

Download or read book Charles Johnson's Fiction written by William R. Nash and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fearless experimenter and one of the most important contemporary American writers, Charles Johnson challenges separatist politics and tries to get beyond race as a literary category. In Charles Johnson's Fiction, William R. Nash emphasizes and explores the tensions in Johnson's work between his ideal of race as illusion and his methods of articulating racial grievance. Nash examines Johnson's short stories, novels--Faith and the Good Thing, Oxherding Tale, Middle Passage, and Dreamer--and the nonfiction work Being and Race. Tracing the themes of Johnson's political and artistic concerns as they evolved in his work, Nash locates his fascination with the aesthetics of the Black Arts Movement and his dismissal of separatist black politics and racialist thought. He also considers Johnson's adoption of Western and Eastern philosophies and belief that race is a blinding, limiting category that impedes the exploration of individual and collective identity. In formulating a mode of expression that balances the conflicting demands of race and aesthetics, Johnson crafts a new vision of history and African American identity that signifies on a range of black and white literary predecessors, including Zora Neale Hurston, Theodore Dreiser, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Herman Melville. Nash argues that Johnson's hybrid philosophy of Buddhism and phenomenology defies the basic premises of identity formation and leads to the perception of a different self. Juxtaposed with jarring storylines of racial injustice, Johnson's notion that race is an illusion informs his aesthetic, promotes his strategies for battling oppression, and reminds readers what African Americans have already overcome in the quest to cultivate new visions of identity. Charles Johnson's Fiction also includes eight of Johnson's cartoons published in Black Humor and Half-Past Nation Time in the early 1970s.

Morality and the Literary Imagination

Author : Gabriel R. Ricci
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351504541
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (515 download)

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Book Synopsis Morality and the Literary Imagination by : Gabriel R. Ricci

Download or read book Morality and the Literary Imagination written by Gabriel R. Ricci and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a letter to Boccaccio, Petrarch extolled the virtue of poetry and letters for promoting an understanding of both human nature and morals. The letter was designed to console him after hearing a prediction that he was soon to die and that he ought to renounce poetry. The prophecy came from an elder renowned for his piety, but Petrarch admonished that too often dishonesty and fraud are couched in religious sentiments. Nothing, not even death, according to Petrarch, ought to divert us from literature. For Petrarch, Virgil was the source for understanding how literary studies not only promote eloquence, but enhance morals. If anything, literature dispels the fear of death. The claims of this volume is that it may be the case that the virtuous life can be achieved by those ignorant of letters but a more direct and certain route is guaranteed by a devotion to literature. The collected works in this new volume of the Transaction series Religion and Public Life heeds Petrarch's advice that literature not only orients us to life's developmental stages, it can provide us with a more complete understanding of the human character while artfully advancing morals. To this end, Michelle Darnell's opening chapter entitled "A New Age of Reason" explains how existentialism is an argument for how literature can take on philosophical form, not as formal argument, but as persuasive narrative. Over the objections of even those who study Sartre, Darnell uses Sartre's The Age of Reason as a model and shows how his literary output was a legitimate philosophical inquiry. In addition to the Darnell piece, the volume boasts a series of outstanding and innovative works by scholars in the field. Taken together as a whole, these authors not only illustrate the moral consequences of an original choice, but oblige the reader to explore the ramifications of such a choice in one's own life.

The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction

Author : Darryl Dickson-Carr
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231510691
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction by : Darryl Dickson-Carr

Download or read book The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction written by Darryl Dickson-Carr and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005-10-14 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Ishmael Reed and Toni Morrison to Colson Whitehead and Terry McMillan, Darryl Dickson-Carr offers a definitive guide to contemporary African American literature. This volume-the only reference work devoted exclusively to African American fiction of the last thirty-five years-presents a wealth of factual and interpretive information about the major authors, texts, movements, and ideas that have shaped contemporary African American fiction. In more than 160 concise entries, arranged alphabetically, Dickson-Carr discusses the careers, works, and critical receptions of Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Jamaica Kincaid, Charles Johnson, John Edgar Wideman, Leon Forrest, as well as other prominent and lesser-known authors. Each entry presents ways of reading the author's works, identifies key themes and influences, assesses the writer's overarching significance, and includes sources for further research. Dickson-Carr addresses the influence of a variety of literary movements, critical theories, and publishers of African American work. Topics discussed include the Black Arts Movement, African American postmodernism, feminism, and the influence of hip-hop, the blues, and jazz on African American novelists. In tracing these developments, Dickson-Carr examines the multitude of ways authors have portrayed the diverse experiences of African Americans. The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction situates African American fiction in the social, political, and cultural contexts of post-Civil Rights era America: the drug epidemics of the 1980s and 1990s and the concomitant "war on drugs," the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, the struggle for gay rights, feminism, the rise of HIV/AIDS, and racism's continuing effects on African American communities. Dickson-Carr also discusses the debates and controversies regarding the role of literature in African American life. The volume concludes with an extensive annotated bibliography of African American fiction and criticism.

Passing the Three Gates

Author : Jim McWilliams
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295802162
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (958 download)

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Book Synopsis Passing the Three Gates by : Jim McWilliams

Download or read book Passing the Three Gates written by Jim McWilliams and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known for his blending of philosophy, spirituality, humor, and a rollicking good story, Charles Johnson is one of the most important novelists writing today. From his magical first novel, Faith and the Good Thing, to his decidedly philosophical Oxherding Tale; from his swashbuckling indictment of the slave trade in the National Book Award-winning Middle Passage, to his more recent imaginative treatment of Martin Luther King Jr. in Dreamer, Johnson has continually surprised, instructed, and entertained his many avid readers. As this collection of interviews suggests, the novelist is as multifaceted and complex as his novels. Trained in cartooning and philosophy, martial arts and meditation, and producing teleplays, photobiographies, and literary criticism in addition to fiction, Charles Johnson represents a model of what he calls �life as art.� Alluding to the "Three Gates" of Buddhist "Right Speech," the title of this volume aptly captures the generous spirit that characterizes Charles Johnson�s work. An indispensable resource for all of Johnson�s many readers, Passing the Three Gates represents both the transformation of the artist over time and the continuity and endurance of his aesthetic and spiritual vision.

Middle Passage

Author : Charles Johnson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439125031
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Middle Passage by : Charles Johnson

Download or read book Middle Passage written by Charles Johnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Charles Johnson’s National Book Award-winning masterpiece—"a novel in the tradition of Billy Budd and Moby-Dick…heroic in proportion…fiction that hooks the mind" (The New York Times Book Review)—now with a new introduction from Stanley Crouch. Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave and irrepressible rogue, is lost in the underworld of 1830s New Orleans. Desperate to escape the city’s unscrupulous bill collectors and the pawing hands of a schoolteacher hellbent on marrying him, he jumps aboard the Republic, a slave ship en route to collect members of a legendary African tribe, the Allmuseri. Thus begins a voyage of metaphysical horror and human atrocity, a journey which challenges our notions of freedom, fate and how we live together. Peopled with vivid and unforgettable characters, nimble in its interplay of comedy and serious ideas, this dazzling modern classic is a perfect blend of the picaresque tale, historical romance, sea yarn, slave narrative and philosophical allegory. Now with a new introduction from renowned writer and critic Stanley Crouch, this twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Middle Passage celebrates a cornerstone of the American canon and the masterwork of one of its most important writers. "Long after we’d stopped believe in the great American novel, along comes a spellbinding adventure story that may be just that" (Chicago Tribune).

American Writers

Author : Elizabeth H. Oakes
Publisher : Infobase Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1438108095
Total Pages : 449 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis American Writers by : Elizabeth H. Oakes

Download or read book American Writers written by Elizabeth H. Oakes and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "American Writers focuses on the rich diversity of American novelists

The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature

Author : John Whalen-Bridge
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438426593
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature by : John Whalen-Bridge

Download or read book The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature written by John Whalen-Bridge and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2009-06-11 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The encounter between Buddhism and American literature has been a powerful one for both parties. While Buddhism fueled the Beat movement's resounding critique of the United States as a spiritually dead society, Beat writers and others have shaped how Buddhism has been presented to and perceived by a North American audience. Contributors to this volume explore how Asian influences have been adapted to American desires in literary works and Buddhist poetics, or how Buddhist practices emerge in literary works. Starting with early aesthetic theories of Ernest Fenollosa, made famous but also distorted by Ezra Pound, the book moves on to the countercultural voices associated with the Beat movement and its friends and heirs such as Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, Giorno, Waldman, and Whalen. The volume also considers the work of contemporary American writers of color influenced by Buddhism, such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Charles Johnson, and Lan Cao. An interview with Kingston is included.

Writing African American Women [2 volumes]

Author : Elizabeth A. Beaulieu
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313024626
Total Pages : 1035 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Writing African American Women [2 volumes] by : Elizabeth A. Beaulieu

Download or read book Writing African American Women [2 volumes] written by Elizabeth A. Beaulieu and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2006-04-30 with total page 1035 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women have had a complex experience in African American culture. The first work of its kind, this encyclopedia approaches African American literature from a Women's Studies perspective. While Yolanda Williams Page's Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers provides biographical entries on more than 150 literary figures, this book is much broader in scope. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries on African American women writers, as well as on male writers who have treated women in their works. Entries on genres, periods, themes, characters, historical events, texts, places, and other topics are included as well. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and relates its subject to the overall experience of women in African American literature. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. African American culture is enormously diverse, and the experience of women in African American society is especially complex. Women were among the first African American writers, and works by black women writers are popular among students and general readers alike. At the same time, African American women have been oppressed, and texts by black male authors represent women in a variety of ways. The first of its kind, this encyclopedia approaches African American literature from a Women's Studies perspective, and thus significantly illuminates the African American cultural experience through literary works. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries, written by numerous expert contributors. In addition to covering male and female African American authors, the encyclopedia also discusses themes, major works and characters, genres, periods, historical events, places, and other topics. Included are entries on such authors as: ; Maya Angelou ; James Baldwin ; Frederick Douglass ; Nikki Giovanni ; June Jordan ; Claude McKay ; Ishmael Reed ; Sojourner Truth ; Phillis Wheatley ; And many others. In addition, the many works discussed include: ; Beloved ; Blanche on the Lam ; Iknow Why the Caged Bird Sings ; The Men of Brewster Place ; Quicksand ; The Street ; Waiting to Exhale ; And many more. The many topical entries cover: ; Black Feminism ; Black Nationalism ; Conjuring ; Children's and Young Adult Literature ; Detective Fiction ; Epistolary Novel ; Motherhood ; Sexuality ; Spirituality ; Stereotypes ; And many others. Entries relate their topics to the experience of African American women and cite works for further reading. Features and Benefits: ; Includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries. ; Draws on the work of numerous expert contributors. ; Includes a selected, general bibliography. ; Offers a range of finding aids, such as a list of entries, a guide to related topics, and an extensive index. ; Supports the literature curriculum by helping students analyze major writers and works. ; Supports the social studies curriculum by helping students use literature to understand the experience of African American women. ; Covers the full chronological range of African American literature. ; Fosters a respect for cultural diversity. ; Develops research skills by directing students to additional sources of information. ; Builds bridges between African American history, literature, and Women's Studies.

African-American Writers

Author : Philip Bader
Publisher : Infobase Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1438107838
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis African-American Writers by : Philip Bader

Download or read book African-American Writers written by Philip Bader and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African-American authors have consistently explored the political dimensions of literature and its ability to affect social change. African-American literature has also provided an essential framework for shaping cultural identity and solidarity. From the early slave narratives to the folklore and dialect verse of the Harlem Renaissance to the modern novels of today

Turning the Wheel

Author : Charles Johnson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 9781439125830
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (258 download)

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Book Synopsis Turning the Wheel by : Charles Johnson

Download or read book Turning the Wheel written by Charles Johnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Were it not for the Buddhadharma, says Charles Johnson in his preface to Turning the Wheel, "I'm convinced that, as a black American and an artist, I would not have been able to successfully negotiate my last half century of life in this country. Or at least not with a high level of creative productivity." In this collection of provocative and intimate essays, Johnson writes of the profound connection between Buddhism and creativity, and of the role of Eastern philosophy in the quest for a free and thoughtful life. In 1926, W. E. B. Du Bois asked African-Americans what they would most want were the color line miraculously forgotten. In Turning the Wheel, Johnson sets out to explore this question by examining his experiences both as a writer and as a practitioner of Buddhism. He looks at basic Buddhist principles and practices, demonstrating how Buddhism is both the most revolutionary and most civilized of possible human choices. He discusses fundamental Buddhist practices such as the Eightfold Path, Taming the Mind, and Sangha and illuminates their place in the American Civil Rights movement. Johnson moves from spiritual guides to spiritual nourishment: writing. In essays touching on the role of the black intellectual, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Ralph Ellison, Johnson uses tools of Buddhist thinking to clarify difficult ideas. Powerful and revelatory, these essays confirm that writing and reading, along with Buddhism, are the basic components that make up a thoughtful life.

Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context [4 volumes]

Author : Linda De Roche
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 2067 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (161 download)

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Book Synopsis Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context [4 volumes] by : Linda De Roche

Download or read book Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context [4 volumes] written by Linda De Roche and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-06-04 with total page 2067 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This four-volume reference work surveys American literature from the early 20th century to the present day, featuring a diverse range of American works and authors and an expansive selection of primary source materials. Bringing useful and engaging material into the classroom, this four-volume set covers more than a century of American literary history—from 1900 to the present. Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context profiles authors and their works and provides overviews of literary movements and genres through which readers will understand the historical, cultural, and political contexts that have shaped American writing. Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context provides wide coverage of authors, works, genres, and movements that are emblematic of the diversity of modern America. Not only are major literary movements represented, such as the Beats, but this work also highlights the emergence and development of modern Native American literature, African American literature, and other representative groups that showcase the diversity of American letters. A rich selection of primary documents and background material provides indispensable information for student research.

Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama

Author : Keith Clark
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252026768
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama by : Keith Clark

Download or read book Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama written by Keith Clark and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrating the extraordinary versatility of African-American men's writing since the 1970s, this forceful collection illustrates how African-American male novelists and playwrights have absorbed, challenged, and expanded the conventions of black American writing and, with it, black male identity. From the "John Henry Syndrome"--a definition of black masculinity based on brute strength or violence--to the submersion of black gay identity under equations of gay with white and black with straight, the African-American male in literature and drama has traditionally been characterized in ways that confine and silence him. Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama identifies the forces that limit black male discourse, including traditions established by iconic African-American male authors such as James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. This thoughtful volume also shows how contemporary black male authors use their narratives to put forward new ways of being and knowing that foster a more complete sense of self and more humane and open ways of communicating with and relating to others. In the work of Charles Johnson, Ernest Gaines, and August Wilson, contributors find paths toward broader, less rigid ideas of what black literature can be, what the connections among individual and communal resistance can be, and how black men can transcend the imprisoning models of hyper masculinity promoted by American culture. Seeking greater spiritual connection with the past, John Edgar Wideman returns to the folk rituals of his family, while Melvin Dixon and Brent Wade reclaim African roots and traditions. Ishmael Reed struggles with a contemporary cultural oppression that he sees as an insidious echo of slavery, while Clarence Major's experimental writing suggests how black men might reclaim their own voices in a culture that silences them. Taking in a wide range of critical, theoretical, cultural, gender, and sexual concerns, Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama provides provocative new readings of a broad range of contemporary writers.

The Words and Wisdom of Charles Johnson

Author : Charles Johnson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781936873647
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (736 download)

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Book Synopsis The Words and Wisdom of Charles Johnson by : Charles Johnson

Download or read book The Words and Wisdom of Charles Johnson written by Charles Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of thoughts and insights from one of America's keenest observers

Writing as Enlightenment

Author : John Whalen-Bridge
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438439210
Total Pages : 211 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Writing as Enlightenment by : John Whalen-Bridge

Download or read book Writing as Enlightenment written by John Whalen-Bridge and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book explores how Buddhist-inflected thought has enriched contemporary American literature. Continuing the work begun in The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature, editors John Whalen-Bridge and Gary Storhoff and the volume's contributors turn to the most recent developments, revealing how mid-1970s through early twenty-first-century literature has employed Buddhist texts, principles, and genres. Just as Buddhism underwent indigenization when it moved from India to Tibet, to China, and to Japan, it is now undergoing that process in the United States. While some will find literary creativity in this process, others lament a loss of authenticity. The book begins with a look at the American reception of Zen and at the approaches to Dharma developed by African Americans. The work of consciously Buddhist and Buddhist-influenced writers such as Don DeLillo, Gary Snyder, and Jackson Mac Low is analyzed, and a final section of the volume contains interviews and discussions with contemporary Buddhist writers. These include an interview with Gary Snyder; a discussion with Maxine Hong Kingston and Charles Johnson; and discussions of competing American and Asian values at the Beat- and Buddhist-inspired writing program at Naropa University with poets Joanne Kyger, Reed Bye, Keith Abbott, Andrew Schelling, and Elizabeth Robinson.