[By Kenton Rambsy] Over the past two weeks, I have explored how issues related to literacy and access as central thematic concerns in books by African American writers. Here is a list of novels, ranging from 1852-2006, mentioned so far: Frederick Douglass’s Heroic Slave (1852) Martin Delany’s Blake; or, the Huts of America (1862) Sutton E. Griggs’s Imperium in Imperio (1899) Ishmael Reed’s Flight […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] I first encountered Frederick Douglass’s The Heroic Slave during my sophomore year at Morehouse College in Atlanta. At the time, I had read his slave narrative and become thoroughly familiar with his pursuits of literacy despite great social, economic, and racial barriers. Reading his novella, though, gave me a chance to reconsider the links between literacy and emancipation from physical bondage. The […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] The “100 Novels Project” provides the opportunity for scholars to make divergent connections between a broad range of authors in order to reveal a number of similarities between their works and better understand how individual black writers have the ability to distinguish their own artistic voices and also contribute to a larger chorus of voices that constitute African American literary traditions. As […]