Borrow it
Coverart for item
The Resource A home elsewhere : reading African American classics in the age of Obama, Robert B. Stepto

A home elsewhere : reading African American classics in the age of Obama, Robert B. Stepto

Creator
Summary
"No single work was more important in the revolution in close reading that electrified African American literary studies in the nineteen eighties than was Robert Burns Stepto's From Behind the Veil, a work as deeply insightful as it was engagingly written. Stepto reminded us, after Keats, that one dives into the lake not merely or necessarily to swim to the other side, but to enjoy the dive. Let us hope, at the end of another era of reductive thematic (race, class, gender) criticism, that this marvelous book can once again play that salutary role in redirecting readers to the sheer splendors of close reading, reminding us of the pleasures of luxuriating in the language of African American texts." "Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University" "In this series of interlocking essays, which had their start as lectures inspired by the presidency of Barack Obama, Robert Burns Stepto sets canonical works of African American literature in conversation with Obama's Dreams from My Father. The elegant readings that result shed surprising light on unexamined angles of works ranging from Frederick Douglass's Narrative to W. E. B. Du Bois's Souls of Black Folk to Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon." "Stepto draws our attention to the concerns that recur in the books he takes up: how protagonists raise themselves, often without one or both parents; how black boys invent black manhood, often with no models before them; how protagonists seek and find a home else-where; and how they create personalities that can deal with the pain of abandonment. These are age-old themes in African American literature that, Stepto shows, gain a special poignancy and importance because our president has lived through these situations and circumstances and has written about them in a way that refreshes our understanding of the whole of African American literature." "Stepto amplifies these themes in four additional essays, which investigate Douglass's correspondence with Harriet Beecher Stowe; Willard Savoy's novel Alien Land and its interracial protagonist; the writer's understanding of the reader in African American literature; and Stepto's account of his own schoolhouse lessons, with their echoes of Douglass's and Obama's experiences."--BOOK JACKET
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
179 p.
Note
Series from jacket flap
Contents
  • Frederick Douglass, Barack Obama, and the search for patrimony
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, Barack Obama, and the search for race : school house blues
  • Toni Morrison, Barack Obama, and difference
  • A greyhound kind of mood
  • Sharing the thunder : the literary exchanges of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Bibb, and Frederick Douglass
  • Willard Savoy's Alien land : biracial identity in a novel of the 1940s
  • Distrust of the reader in Afro-American narratives
Isbn
9780674050969
Instance
Label
A home elsewhere : reading African American classics in the age of Obama
Title
A home elsewhere
Title remainder
reading African American classics in the age of Obama
Statement of responsibility
Robert B. Stepto
Creator
Subject
Language
eng
Summary
"No single work was more important in the revolution in close reading that electrified African American literary studies in the nineteen eighties than was Robert Burns Stepto's From Behind the Veil, a work as deeply insightful as it was engagingly written. Stepto reminded us, after Keats, that one dives into the lake not merely or necessarily to swim to the other side, but to enjoy the dive. Let us hope, at the end of another era of reductive thematic (race, class, gender) criticism, that this marvelous book can once again play that salutary role in redirecting readers to the sheer splendors of close reading, reminding us of the pleasures of luxuriating in the language of African American texts." "Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University" "In this series of interlocking essays, which had their start as lectures inspired by the presidency of Barack Obama, Robert Burns Stepto sets canonical works of African American literature in conversation with Obama's Dreams from My Father. The elegant readings that result shed surprising light on unexamined angles of works ranging from Frederick Douglass's Narrative to W. E. B. Du Bois's Souls of Black Folk to Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon." "Stepto draws our attention to the concerns that recur in the books he takes up: how protagonists raise themselves, often without one or both parents; how black boys invent black manhood, often with no models before them; how protagonists seek and find a home else-where; and how they create personalities that can deal with the pain of abandonment. These are age-old themes in African American literature that, Stepto shows, gain a special poignancy and importance because our president has lived through these situations and circumstances and has written about them in a way that refreshes our understanding of the whole of African American literature." "Stepto amplifies these themes in four additional essays, which investigate Douglass's correspondence with Harriet Beecher Stowe; Willard Savoy's novel Alien Land and its interracial protagonist; the writer's understanding of the reader in African American literature; and Stepto's account of his own schoolhouse lessons, with their echoes of Douglass's and Obama's experiences."--BOOK JACKET
Member of
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Stepto, Robert B
Dewey number
810.9/896073
Index
index present
LC call number
PS153.N5
LC item number
S75 2010
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
Series statement
The W.E.B. Du Bois lectures
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • American literature
  • American literature
  • American literature
  • African Americans
  • Identity (Psychology) in literature
  • African Americans in literature
Label
A home elsewhere : reading African American classics in the age of Obama, Robert B. Stepto
Instantiates
Publication
Note
Series from jacket flap
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Contents
Frederick Douglass, Barack Obama, and the search for patrimony -- W.E.B. Du Bois, Barack Obama, and the search for race : school house blues -- Toni Morrison, Barack Obama, and difference -- A greyhound kind of mood -- Sharing the thunder : the literary exchanges of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Bibb, and Frederick Douglass -- Willard Savoy's Alien land : biracial identity in a novel of the 1940s -- Distrust of the reader in Afro-American narratives
Control code
ocn456170015
Dimensions
22 cm.
Extent
179 p.
Isbn
9780674050969
Isbn Type
(hbk. : alk. paper)
Lccn
2010003532
System control number
(OCoLC)456170015
Label
A home elsewhere : reading African American classics in the age of Obama, Robert B. Stepto
Publication
Note
Series from jacket flap
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Contents
Frederick Douglass, Barack Obama, and the search for patrimony -- W.E.B. Du Bois, Barack Obama, and the search for race : school house blues -- Toni Morrison, Barack Obama, and difference -- A greyhound kind of mood -- Sharing the thunder : the literary exchanges of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Bibb, and Frederick Douglass -- Willard Savoy's Alien land : biracial identity in a novel of the 1940s -- Distrust of the reader in Afro-American narratives
Control code
ocn456170015
Dimensions
22 cm.
Extent
179 p.
Isbn
9780674050969
Isbn Type
(hbk. : alk. paper)
Lccn
2010003532
System control number
(OCoLC)456170015

Subject

Member of

Library Locations

    • CRPL-Downtown LibraryBorrow it
      450 5th Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids, IA, 52401, US
      41.976964 -91.6624043

Library Links

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Cedar Rapids Public Library-Metro Library Network. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.
Processing Feedback ...