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This volume of essays examines the forced dispossession of the Middle Passage through the texts, religious rites, economic exchanges, dance and music it elicited, both on the liminal transatlantic journey and on the continent and eventual return. As a whole this collection establishes a broad ...

This volume of essays examines the forced dispossession of the Middle Passage through the texts, religious rites, economic exchanges, dance and music it elicited, both on the liminal transatlantic journey and on the continent and eventual return. As a whole this collection establishes a broad topographical and temporal context for the Passage that extends from the interior of Africa across the Atlantic and to the interior of the Americas, and from the time of the Middle Passage to the present day. A collective narrative of itinerant cultural consciousness as represented in histories, myth and arts, these contributions reconceptualize the meaning of the Middle Passage for African American history and fiction.

In 1849, Henry Brown escaped from slavery by shipping himself in a three-foot-by-two-foot wooden crate from Virginia to an anti-slavery office in Philadelphia. Twenty-seven hours and 350 miles later, Brown stepped out of his box to begin a new life. This is his memoir, originally published in 1851 ...

In 1849, Henry Brown escaped from slavery by shipping himself in a three-foot-by-two-foot wooden crate from Virginia to an anti-slavery office in Philadelphia. Twenty-seven hours and 350 miles later, Brown stepped out of his box to begin a new life. This is his memoir, originally published in 1851 in England, as fresh and compelling today as it was 150 years ago. This extraordinary narrative paints an indelible portrait of life in slavery. With a keen sense of irony, Brown examines the "peculiar institution"--from the hypocrisy of slave-owning Christian preachers, to the system of bribery that forced slaves to purchase the rights to their own belongings, to the practice of separating slave families with no warning. The story also describes one of the most audacious, creative escapes ever completed. A classic slave narrative, it makes for unforgettable reading.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s original, groundbreaking study explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature, elaborating a new critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself. Examining the ...

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s original, groundbreaking study explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature, elaborating 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, and particularly the Yoruba trickster figure of Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey whose myths help articulate the black tradition's theory of its literature, Gates uncovers a unique system for interpretation and a powerful vernacular tradition that black slaves brought with them to the New World. His critical approach relies heavily on the Signifying Monkey--perhaps the most popular figure in African-American folklore--and signification and Signifyin(g). Exploring signification in black American life and literature by analyzing the transmission and revision of various signifying figures, Gates provides an extended analysis of what he calls the "Talking Book," a central trope in early slave narratives that virtually defines the tradition of black American letters. Gates uses this critical framework to examine several major works of African-American literature--including Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo--revealing how these works signify on the black tradition and on each other. The second volume in an enterprising trilogy on African-American literature, The Signifying Monkey--which expands the arguments of Figures in Black--makes an important contribution to literary theory, African-American literature, folklore, and literary history.