LibGuides: ENGL 2055: African American Literature: Notable Books Available in the Library

Literary Criticism in the JSCC Library

Black Literature Criticism by James P. Draper (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. PS153.N5 B556 1992
Publication Date: 1991

This three volume set is located in the reference section of the JSCC Library.

Interlibrary Loan

If you need a book or an article that the Jackson State Community College Library doesn't own, please contact Scott Cohen at 731-424-3520 ext. 52615 or by email at scohen@jscc.edu. Provide him with the author, title, date of publication and publisher. for a book. For an article in a journal or magazine, provide her the name of the journal or magazine, the date of the journal or magazine, the title of the article and the pages on which the article appears.

The Library will then ask another library to loan us the book or send a scanned copy of the article. We use the Online College Library Center to connect us to most academic libraries in the country.

It takes about two weeks for a book to be sent here from another library and about a week for a copy of an article.

Notable Print Books in the JSCC Library

African American Writers and Classical Tradition by William W. Cook and James Tatum
Call Number: PS153.N5 C665 2010
Publication Date: 2010
The authors argue that African American literature did not develop apart from the canonical Western literary traditions but instead grew out of those literatures, even as it adapted and transformed the cultural traditions and religions of Africa and the African diaspora along the way. They trace the interaction between African American writers and the literatures of ancient Greece and Rome, from the time of slavery and its aftermath to the civil rights era through the present.
Down Home: A History of Afro-American Short Fiction from Its Beginnings to the End of the Harlem Renaissance by Robert Bone
Call Number: PS374.S5 B6
Publication Date: 1975
Includes criticism and interpretation of works of Jean Toomer, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay.
Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and Her Circle, A Biography of the Harlem Renaissance by Verner D. Mitchell and Cynthia Davis
Call Number: PS153.N5 M58 2012
Publication Date: 2011
Reveals West's struggles for recognition outside the traditional literary establishment, and her collaborations with innovative African American women writers, artists, and performers who faced similar problems. With such "literary sisters" as Zora Neal Hurston and West's cousin, poet Helene Johnson, she created an emotional support network that also aided in promoting, publishing, and performing their respective works. Integrating rare photos, letters, and archival materials, this book is not only a groundbreaking biography of an increasingly important author but also a vivid portrait of a pivotal moment for African American women in the arts.
Lost Plays of the Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1940 by James V. Hatch (Editor); Leo Hamalian (Editor)
Call Number: PS628.N4 L67 1996
Publication Date: 1996
This compilation of sixteen plays written during the Harlem Renaissance brings together for the first time the works of Langston Hughes, George S. Schuyler, Francis Hall Johnson, Shirley Graham, and others. In the continuing rediscovery of writers and works from the Harlem Renaissance, Lost Plays of the Harlem Renaissance 1920-1940 serves as essential background for contemporary readers and is a valuable contribution to African American literary and theatrical scholarship.
Rereading the Harlem Renaissance: Race, Class, and Gender in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy West by Sharon L. Jones
Call Number: PS153.N5 J68 2002
Publication Date: 2002
This rereading of the Harlem Renaissance gives special attention to Fauset, Hurston, and West. Jones argues that all three aesthetics influence each of their works, that they have been historically mislabeled, and that they share a drive to challenge racial, class, and gender oppression.

Notable eBooks Available Through the JSCC Library

Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era by Lean'tin L. Bracks and Jessie Carney Smith (Editors)
Publication Date: 2014
The Harlem Renaissance is considered one of the most significant periods of creative and intellectual expression for African Americans. Beginning as early as 1914 and lasting into the 1940s, this era saw individuals reject the stereotypes of African Americans and confront the racist, social, political, and economic ideas that denied them citizenship and access to the American Dream. While the majority of recognized literary and artistic contributors to this period were black males, African American women were also key contributors.Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era profiles the most important figures of this cultural and intellectual movement
Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon by Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner (Editors)
Publication Date: 2013
In this volume, Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner have compiled a collection of essays that offer access to some of the most innovative contemporary black fiction while addressing important issues in current African American literary studies. Distinguished scholars Houston Baker, Trudier Harris, Darryl Dickson-Carr, and Maryemma Graham join writers and younger scholars to explore the work of Toni Morrison, Edward P. Jones, Trey Ellis, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, Kyle Baker, Danzy Senna, Nikki Turner, and many others.
Extravagant Abjection: Blackness, Power, and Sexuality in the African American Literary Imagination by Darieck Scott
Publication Date: 2010
Challenging the conception of empowerment associated with the Black Power Movement and its political and intellectual legacies in the present, Darieck Scott contends that power can be found not only in martial resistance, but, surprisingly, where the black body has been inflicted with harm or humiliation.
How to Read African American Literature: Post-Civil Rights Fiction and the Task of Interpretation by Aida Levy-Hussen
Publication Date: 2016
How to Read African American Literature offers a series of provocations to unsettle the predominant assumptions readers make when encountering post-Civil Rights black fiction. Foregrounding the large body of literature and criticism that grapples with legacies of the slave past, Aida Levy-Hussen's argument develops on two levels: as a textual analysis of black historical fiction, and as a critical examination of the reading practices that characterize the scholarship of our time.
In the Life and in the Spirit: Homoerotic Spirituality in African American Literature by Marlon Rachquel Moore
Publication Date: 2014
Taking up the perceived tensions between the LGBTQ community and religious African Americans, Marlon Rachquel Moore examines how strategies of antihomophobic resistance dovetail into broader literary and cultural concerns. In the Life and in the Spirit shows how creative writers integrate expressions of faith or the supernatural with sensuality, desire, and pleasure in a way that highlights a spectrum of black sexualities and gender expressions.
Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature by Gene Andrew Jarrett
Publication Date: 2011
The political value of African American literature has long been a topic of great debate among American writers, both black and white, from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama. In his compelling new book, Representing the Race, Gene Andrew Jarrett traces the genealogy of this topic in order to develop an innovative political history of African American literature.
The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Publication Date: 2014
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s The Signifying Monkey is a groundbreaking work that illuminates the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature. It elaborates a new critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself. Examining the ancient poetry and myths found in African, Latin American, and Caribbean culture, Gates uncovers a unique system for interpretation and a powerful vernacular tradition that black slaves brought with them to the New World.