Deans and Truants

Deans and Truants Race and Realism in African American Literature Gene Andrew Jarrett "Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature is a richly textured study of theoretical conceptions of the African American canon as well as primary and secondary sources."--American Literature "In Deans and Truants Gene Jarrett has inaugurated an entirely new approach to the subject of canon-formation in African American literature, insisting that we expand our definition of the tradition to include black authors who chose not to write about race and who, consequently, have often found their works uncollected and unanalyzed, if not severely critiqued. Jarrett's cogent and compelling argument is sure to generate debate and, ultimately, lead to a reconsideration of what, exactly, is 'African American' about African American literature. This is a very important book and marks the inaugural intervention of one of the major scholars and critics of African American literature of a new generation."--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University "While challenging the standard notion of black literature, this readable, engaging work also provides insightful analyses of such understudied works as Morrison's short story 'Recitatif,' Yerby's historical novel The Foxes of Harrow, and Schuyler's satirical novel Black No More."--Choice "Selecting a wide range of writing, poetry, novels, short stories, satire, and criticism, Jarrett shows how the reception of certain authors and their texts has defined what is and is not considered African American literature to this day...This book is well written and as nicely nuanced as the topic it addresses."--Journal of American Studies For a work to be considered African American literature, does it need to focus on black characters or political themes? Must it represent these within a specific stylistic range? Or is it enough for the author to be identified as African American? In Deans and Truants, Gene Andrew Jarrett traces the shifting definitions of African American literature and the authors who wrote beyond those boundaries at the cost of critical dismissal and, at times, obscurity. From the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, de facto deans--critics and authors as different as William Howells, Alain Locke, Richard Wright, and Amiri Baraka--prescribed the shifting parameters of realism and racial subject matter appropriate to authentic African American literature, while truant authors such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, George S. Schuyler, Frank Yerby, and Toni Morrison--perhaps the most celebrated African American author of the twentieth century--wrote literature anomalous to those standards. Gene Andrew Jarrett teaches English at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the editor of African American Literature Beyond Race: An Alternative Reader and a coeditor of The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar. His articles have appeared in PMLA, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, and Callaloo. 2006 | 232 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-3973-7 | Cloth | $55.00s | GBP36.00 ISBN 978-0-8122-0235-9 | Ebook | $55.00s | GBP36.00 World Rights | Literature Short copy: For a work to be considered African American literature, does it need to focus on African American characters? Or is it enough for the author to be identified as African American? Jarrett traces the shifting definitions of African American literature and the authors who wrote beyond those boundaries at the cost of critical dismissal or obscurity.