African American Literary Theory: A Reader Book

	Acknowledgments
	Introduction	1
Pt. 1	The 1920s to the 1960s: Affirming a Black Aesthetic	15
1	Criteria of Negro Art	17
2	The Negro-Art Hokum	24
3	The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain	27
4	Characteristics of Negro Expression	31
5	Blueprint for Negro Writing	45
6	What White Publishers Won't Print	54
7	Self-Criticism: The Third Dimension in Culture	58
8	Expressive Language	62
9	Brave Words for a Startling Occasion	66
10	And Shine Swam On: An Afterword	69
11	The Black Writer and His Role	81
Pt. 2	The 1970s: The Onset of Theory and the Emergence of Black Feminist Critique	87
12	Some Reflections on the Black Aesthetic	89
13	Cultural Strangulation: Black Literature and the White Aesthetic	92
14	Inside the Funk Shop: A Word on Black Words	97
15	Saturation: Progress Report on a Theory of Black Poetry	102
16	On the Criticism of Black American Literature: One View of the Black Aesthetic	113
17	Toward a Black Feminist Criticism	132
18	Preface to Blackness: Text and Pretext	147
Pt. 3	The 1980s: Poststructuralism and the Growth of Feminist Theory	165
19	New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism	167
20	Generational Shifts and the Recent Criticism of Afro-American Literature	179
21	Some Implications of Womanist Theory	218
22	Belief, Theory, and Blues: Notes for a Post-Structuralist Criticism of Afro-American Literature	224
23	"Woman's Era": Rethinking Black Feminist Theory	242
24	Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book	257
25	The Race for Theory	280
26	The Black Canon: Reconstructing Black American Literary Criticism	290
27	"What's Love Got to Do with It?": Critical Theory, Integrity, and the Black Idiom	298
28	In Dubious Battle	313
29	"Who the Cap Fit": Unconsciousness and Unconscionableness in the Criticism of Houston A. Baker, Jr. and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.	319
30	Appropriative Gestures: Theory and Afro-American Literary Criticism	331
31	Introduction to The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism	339
32	Speaking in Tongues: Dialogics, Dialectics, and the Black Woman Writer's Literary Tradition	348
33	Black Feminist Theory and the Representation of the "Other"	369
Pt. 4	The 1990s: Feminist Expansions, Queer Theory, and the Turn to Cultural Studies	385
34	Revision and (Re)membrance: A Theory of Literary Structures in Literature by African-American Women Writers	387
35	Toward a Black Gay Aesthetic: Signifying in Contemporary Black Gay Literature	399
36	Theoretical Returns	421
37	Phallus(ies) of Interpretation: Toward Engendering the Black Critical "I"	443
38	Nationalism and Social Division in Black Arts Poetry of the 1960s	460
39	The Problems with Silence and Exclusiveness in the African American Literary Community	475
40	Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality	482
41	Some Glances at the Black Fag: Race, Same-Sex Desire, and Cultural Belonging	498
42	The Crisis in Black American Literary Criticism and the Postmodern Cures of Houston A. Backer, Jr., and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.	523
43	A Black Man's Place in Black Feminist Criticism	540
44	Black Feminist Thinking: The "Practice" of "Theory"	557
45	"All the Things You Could Be by Now, If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother": Psychoanalysis and Race	580
46	Tearing the Goat's Flesh: Homosexuality, Abjection, and the Production of a Late Twentieth-Century Black Masculinity	602
47	African Signs and Spirit Writing	623
48	Mapping the Interstices between Afro-American Cultural Discourse and Cultural Studies: A Prolegomenon	643
49	Cultural Narratives Passed On: African American Mourning Stories	653
50	Introduction to Race Men: The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures	660
51	Malcolm's Conk and Danto's Colors: or, Four Logical Petitions Concerning Race, Beauty, and Aesthetics	665
	Suggested Readings since the 1970s for African American Literary/Cultural Theory: A Select Bibliography	673
	Contributors	691
	Permissions	697
	Index	701