Montag, 3. Oktober 2011

African American Literary and Cultural Developments in the Post-Civil Rights Era


As part of our day at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, Prof. Qiana Whitted focused her short talk on various influential African American writers of the last forty years, reflecting in particular on what it means to be a 'black writer' and the responsibility that role entails. Interestingly, she suggested that since these writers were recognized as part of the African American canon that also implied that the cost of failure was much higher because their works reflected on their community. Their personal failure would have translated into a failure of their 'race.' The existence of a black movement and of African American literature gave a certain authority and level of legitimacy to writers like Langston Hughes. On the other hand, as Toni Morrison realized, this also prevented others (minorities within the minority) to be heard, e.g. young black girls who did not identify with the slogan "black is beautiful."

In the course of her talk, Whitted also underlined the importance of the fantastic mode of writing, in opposition to a more realist approach, and that, in the case of African American literature, realism has often been set aside for a more fantastic and free approach to the 'black experience.' Finally, she mentioned some examples of post-racial narratives and how slavery is still used as a metaphor to tell different stories of oppression and social struggle, e.g. in the science fiction novels by Octavia E. Butler.

Eleonora

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