New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers is a collection of critical and pedagogical essays that shed new light on the creative depths of Black women writers. On the one hand, some Black women writers have been heavily anthologized, they have more often than not been restricted by critical metanarratives. Some of their works have been lionized while others remain neglected. On the other hand, some Black women writers have been ignored and understudied. This collection corrects the gaps in our critical thinking about Black women writers by introducing them to a new generation of undergraduate and graduate students, and by presenting pedagogical essays to our colleagues currently working in the field.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), the most prominent of the Harlem Renaissance women writers, was unique because her social and professional connections were not limited to literature but encompassed theatre, dance, film, anthropology, folklore, music, politics, high society, academia, and artistic bohemia. Hurston published four novels, three books of nonfiction, and dozens of short stories, plays, and essays. In addition, she won a long list of fellowships and prizes, including a Guggenheim and a Rosenwald. Yet by the 1950s, Hurston, like most of her Harlem Renaissance peers, had faded into oblivion. An essay by Alice Walker in the 1970s, however, spurred the revival of Hurston's literary reputation, and her works, including her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, have enjoyed an enduring popularity. Zora Neale Hurston: An Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism consists of reviews of critical interpretations of Hurston's work. In addition to publication information, each selection is carefully crafted to capture the author's thesis in a short, pithy, analytical framework. Also included are original essays by eminent Hurston scholars that contextualize the bibliographic entries. Meticulously researched but accessible, these essays focus on gaps in Hurston criticism and outline new directions for Hurston scholarship in the twenty-first century. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this volume contains analytical summaries of the most important critical writings on Zora Neale Hurston from the 1970s to the present. In addition, entries from difficult-to-locate sources, such as small academic presses or international journals, can be found here. Although intended as a bibliographic resource for graduate and undergraduate students, this volume is also aimed toward general readers interested in women's literature, African American literature, American history, and popular culture. The book will also appeal to scholars and teachers studying twentieth-century American literature, as well as those specializing in anthropology, modernism, and African American studies, with a special focus on the women of the Harlem Renaissance.

The poet William Waring Cuney (1906-1976) hails from an illustrious Afro-Texan family whose members include the charismatic politician Norris Wright Cuney (1846-1898) and his daughter, Maud Cuney Hare (1874-1936),the concert pianist and writer. Waring Cuney's maternal line, after whom he was named, was equally eminent. Cuney was born and raised in Washington D.C., just a few blocks from Howard University where three generations of his family studied. Despite his privileged upbringing among the city's Black elite, Cuney embraced his family's passionate commitment to racial uplift and civil rights; in exploring the relationship between African Americans and their environment, he was thus able to transmute into two books of poetry a broad cross section of African American life; his poems and songs explore the lives of jazz musicians, athletes, domestic and railway workers, women and children, blues singers, prisoners, sharecroppers, and soldiers. In addition, Cuney published in all the major Harlem Renaissance journals and anthologies alongside the luminaries of the period, many of whom were good friends. Through 100 of his best poems, many never collected or published, and a detailed biographical monograph, Images in the River: The Life and Work of Waring Cuney introduces readers to a newly recovered Harlem Renaissance poet, and to the history of a remarkable American family.

"Charlotte Perkins Gilman" offers the definitive account of this controversial writer and activist's long and eventful life. Charlotte Anna Perkins Stetson Gilman (1860-1935) launched her career as a lecturer, author, and reformer with the story for which she is best-known today, "The Yellow Wallpaper." She was hailed as the "brains" of the US women's movement, whose focus she sought to broaden from suffrage to economics. Her most influential sociological work criticized the competitive individualism of capitalists and Social Darwinists, and touted altruistic service as the prerequisite to both social progress and human evolution.
By 1900, Gilman had become an international celebrity, but had already faced a scandal over her divorce and "abandonment" of her child. As the years passed, her audience shrunk and grew more hostile, and she increasingly positioned herself in opposition to the society that in an earlier, more idealistic period she had seen as the better part of the self. In her final years, she unflinchingly faced breast cancer, her second husband's sudden death, and finally, her own carefully planned suicide-- she "preferred chloroform to cancer" and cared little for a single life when its usefulness was over.
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman" presents new insights into the life of a remarkable woman whose public solutions often belied her private anxieties. It aims to recapture the drama and complexity of Gilman's life while presenting a comprehensive scholarly portrait.

"Charlotte Perkins Gilman" offers the definitive account of this controversial writer and activist's long and eventful life. Charlotte Anna Perkins Stetson Gilman (1860-1935) launched her career as a lecturer, author, and reformer with the story for which she is best-known today, "The Yellow Wallpaper." She was hailed as the "brains" of the US women's movement, whose focus she sought to broaden from suffrage to economics. Her most influential sociological work criticized the competitive individualism of capitalists and Social Darwinists, and touted altruistic service as the prerequisite to both social progress and human evolution.
By 1900, Gilman had become an international celebrity, but had already faced a scandal over her divorce and "abandonment" of her child. As the years passed, her audience shrunk and grew more hostile, and she increasingly positioned herself in opposition to the society that in an earlier, more idealistic period she had seen as the better part of the self. In her final years, she unflinchingly faced breast cancer, her second husband's sudden death, and finally, her own carefully planned suicide-- she "preferred chloroform to cancer" and cared little for a single life when its usefulness was over.
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman" presents new insights into the life of a remarkable woman whose public solutions often belied her private anxieties. It aims to recapture the drama and complexity of Gilman's life while presenting a comprehensive scholarly portrait.

The Black Arts Movement (BAM) encompassed a group of artists, musicians, novelists, and playwrights, whose work combined innovative approaches to literature, film, music, visual arts and theatre. With a heightened consciousness of black agency and autonomy-along with the radical politics of the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Muslims and the Black Panthers-these figures represented a collective effort to defy the status quo of American life and culture. Between the late 1950s and the end of the 1970s, the movement produced some of America's most original and controversial artists and intellectuals. In The Encyclopedia of the Blacks Arts Movement, Verner D. Mitchell and Cynthia Davis have collected essays on the key figures of the movement including Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Larry Neal, Sun Ra, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, and Archie Shepp. Additional essays focus on Black Theatre magazine, the Negro Ensemble Company, and lesser known individuals-including Kathleen Collins, Tom Dent, Bill Gunn, June Jordan, and Barbara Ann Teer-and groups, such as AfriCOBRA and the New York Umbra Poetry Workshop. Featuring essays by contemporary scholars and rare photographs of BAM artists, The Encyclopedia of the Blacks Arts Movement is an essential reference for students and scholars of twentieth century American literature and African-American cultural studies.

"Recovers Coleman's life and literary legacy"

One of the most distinctive and prolific writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Anita Scott Coleman (1890-1960) found popular and critical success in the flourishing African American press of the early twentieth century. Yet unlike many of her New York-based contemporaries, Coleman lived her life in the American West, first in New Mexico and later in California. Her work thus offers a rare view of African American life in that region.

Broader in scope than any previous anthology of Coleman's writings, this volume collects the author's finest stories, essays, and poems, including many not published since they first appeared in African American newspapers during the 1920s, '30s, and '40's. Editors Cynthia Davis and Verner D. Mitchell introduce these writings with an in-depth biographical essay that places Coleman in the context of the Harlem Renaissance movement.

The volume also features vintage family photographs, a detailed chronology, and a genealogical tree covering five generations of the Coleman family. Based on extensive research and written with the full cooperation of the Coleman family, "Western Echoes of the Harlem Renaissance" gives readers new understanding of this overlooked writer's life and literary accomplishments.

Do the little things we do and say really make a difference in the lives of others? Some Men Are Our Heroes answers this question with a resounding "yes" as eight accomplished Christian women tell the stories of the men in their lives who helped them achieve remarkable things for God's kingdom. These touching stories of women from around the world and the fathers, husbands, brothers, pastors, colleagues, and friends who encouraged, strengthened, and challenged them along their life journeys will warm the hearts of women and men alike.

Miriam's Healing is the story of Miriam, older sister of Moses. Her journey to faith in the midst of slavery speaks to all of us who ask, "Where is God in suffering and inequity?" As the young girl saves her baby brother's life and becomes a frequent visitor to the house of Pharaoh, she dreams of saving her family from slavery. Her relationship with her brother, chosen Deliverer of the nation, is marred by jealousy that nearly destroys the refugee nation of Israel. Will Miriam be too envious and resentful of her brothers, priest and prophet to the people, to see that she too has a gift? Only after she learns that in the Living God is true freedom can she relinquish her animosity and fulfill her destiny as the bearer of the story of the mighty works of God.