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Black Writing: A New Orleans Example
Image via Google. [by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]Seldom is the interrelated difference of black writing and black literature a topic of conversation or a point of sustained discussion in undergraduate and...
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A Missive on the Professional: Is African American Literature Really American...
Editor's Note: As the HBW Blog returns in 2015, we are excited to share a dialogue between Howard Rambsy II and Jerry W. Ward, Jr., about the current perception of the status of African American...
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A Missive on the Professional: An Open Letter to Howard Rambsy II
Editor's Note: On Monday, we posted Howard Rambsy II's letter, "Is African American Literature Really American Literature?", in which Rambsy argued that, in the eyes of higher education hiring...
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: Remembering and Forgetting on January 19
January 19, 2015 will be an ordinary day. It will not be, as a person from Maine might say, a “wicked good” day. It will be twenty-four hours occupying a square on a calendar, another SNAFU day in the...
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Martin Luther King 2015: A Different Kind of Eulogy
[by Maryemma Graham]When Sojourner Truth took the podium at the Women’s Rights convention in Akron, Ohio, 1851, she became in an instant the quintessential symbol of triple jeopardy: she was a former...
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Black Writing and Blues Allegory
[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]American politics will popularize exegesis in 2015, and so too might the publication of Toni Morrison’s eleventh novel, God Help the Child.Scheduled for release in April by...
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Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement
[by Meredith Wiggins]Some of the biggest names in African American poetry will converge on KU this summer when the Project on the History of Black Writing hosts a two-week institute on the subject of...
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Trojan Flags for Cultural Study
[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]When policemen turn their backs to a mayor at the funeral of a police officer slain in the line of duty, is this symbolic act to be “read” as a sign of anger, disrespect, and...
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Richard Wright's BLACK BOY and Seven Decades of Wisdom
[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]Published by Harper and Brothers in 1945 as Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth and by the Library of America in 1991 as Black Boy (American Hunger), Richard Wright’s...
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In Honor of Richard Wright's BLACK BOY (1945)
Today, the HBW Blog is pleased to share a haiku by Julia and Malcolm Wright, Richard Wright's daughter and grandson, in honor of the 70th anniversary of Richard Wright's Black Boy (1945). black boy...
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Nathaniel Mackey, Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement Speaker, Awarded...
HBW is proud to congratulate poet Nathaniel Mackey, who will serve as a speaker at HBW's upcoming NEH Summer Institute Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement, on winning Yale University's...
View ArticleICYMI: This Week in Black Writing (1/31 - 2/6)
- Toni Morrison released a new short story, "Sweetness," through The New Yorker. - Sunday, February 1 was Langston Hughes's 113th birthday. Google celebrated with this charming video (embedded below):
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Reading List: Staff Recommendations for the National African American Read-In
Looking for a way to celebrate Black History Month? The National African American Read-In began on Sunday, February 1, and will go through Saturday, February 28.Sponsored by the Black Caucus of the...
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Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement: A Closer Look
[by Kristin Joi Coffey]The Project on the History of Black Writing is excited to announce our 2015 Summer Institute, Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement, funded by the National Endowment for the...
View ArticleICYMI: This Week in Black Writing (2/7 -2/13)
- HBW Staff Members gave recommendations on black-authored books to read for the National African American Read-In.- Kristin Joi Coffey gave more detail about HBW's upcoming funded NEH Summer Seminar,...
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Shakespeare: His Blackwashing
FOX's "Empire" rewrites King Lear for 21st-century viewers.[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]Many years ago, most people who earned a Ph.D. in English had to study the works of William Shakespeare. That was a...
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Black Literary Suite: Black Writers with a Kansas Connection
Langston Hughes. Gwendolyn Brooks. Frank Marshall Davis. Kevin Young.What do they have in common?At various points in their lives, each of them lived in Kansas. Brooks stayed for mere weeks, only...
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ICYMI: This Week in Black Writing (2/14 - 2/20)
- Jerry W. Ward, Jr. told us how Shakespeare lives on in FOX's new show Empire.- We previewed the upcoming HBW event Black Literary Suite: Black Writers with a Kansas Connection, kicking off on...
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HBW Emerging Scholars: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the "Slave Narrative" Genre
[by Amanda M. Sladek]The HBW Emerging Scholars series offers graduate student scholars the chance to share pieces that speak to their own critical interests in more depth than usual blog posts. Today's...
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Remembering Anne Moody (Sept. 15, 1940 - Feb. 5, 2015)
[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]Four years after graduating from Tougaloo College, the young Anne Moody published Coming of Age in Mississippi (1968). It is noteworthy that this autobiography has been...
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