Contemporary African American Literature The Living Canon [Hardcover]

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. The collection is bracketed by a foreword by novelist and graphic artist Mat Johnson, one of the most exciting and innovative contemporary African American writers, and an afterword by Alice Randall, author of the controversial parody The Wind Done Gone. Together, King and Moody-Turner make the case that diversity, innovation, and canon expansion are essential to maintaining the vitality of African American literary studies.

Lovalerie King is Director of the Africana Research Center, Associate Professor, and Director of Graduate Studies in African American studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is author or co-editor of six books, including James Baldwin and Toni Morrison: Comparative and Theoretical Essays; Race, Theft, and Ethics: Property Matters in African American Literature; and New Essays on the African American Novel.

Shirley Moody-Turner is Assistant Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University.

Foreword
Mat Johnson, University of Houston
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner, Penn State University
I. Politics of Publishing, Pedagogy, and Readership
1. The Point of Entanglement: Modernism, Diaspora, and Toni Morrisons Love
Houston A. Baker, Jr., Vanderbilt University
2. The Historical Burden that Only Oprah Can Bear: African American
Satirists and the State of the Literature
Darryl Dickson-Carr, Southern Methodist Universityl¦