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ICYMI: The Last 2 Weeks in Black Writing (8/4 - 8/16)
- HBW collected tributes from a number of important writers and scholars to bid farewell to Chancellor Bob Hemenway, who - among many other accomplishments - wrote a foundational literary biography of...
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A Great American Protest Novel
A spiritual inheritor to Agee, says Ward.[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]“There is in Southern white man, distributed almost as thickly as the dialect,” James Agee wrote in 1936, “an epidemic capability of...
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William Shakespeare and Amiri Baraka
Many years ago at a dinner party I proposed that Shakespeare got too much attention, that commentary on this Elizabethan writer was just so much bardolatry, that Shakespeare's contemporaries and other...
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This week in ICYMI: Project HBW Remembers Katrina 10 Years Later
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast, displacing hundreds of thousands of people in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. New Orleans, a city with an average...
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Centennials
Thanks to the troublesome "magic" of instant communication which informs us about what happened prior to its spatial and temporal manifestations, we might welcome the rest and recuperation that a...
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ICYMI: The Last Few Weeks in Black Writing
The world morns on the 14th anniversary of 9/11.KU’s very own Danny Cain wrote a piece on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.Spike Lee, writer and director of the 1989 film “Do the Right Thing,”...
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The Yi-Fen Chou Affair
If Sherman Alexie had remembered good advice from Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince when he was deliberating about what to include in The Best American Poetry 2015, there would be no discussion in...
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Memorial Celebration Scheduled to Honor Poet Samuel Allen (aka Paul Vesey)
Project HBW has received news of a memorial celebration to honor poet Samuel Allen, who passed away on June 27, 2015. See official press release at bottom or click the link above.Samuel Allen was born...
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ICYMI: The Last Week In Black Writing and Culture
HBW honored poet Samuel Allen, who passed away in June. Allen’s memorial celebration is scheduled for October 10th.On September 15th, the nation mourned the 52nd anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist...
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The Serious Commitments of Jerry W. Ward, Jr. & William J. Harris
[by Howard Rambsy]Dr. Rambsy is an associate professor of English at Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville By the time I met my undergraduate professor Jerry W. Ward, Jr. in the mid 1990s, he had...
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ICYMI: The last Week in Black Writing (9/18-9/25)
HBW celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month. See 26 stories that have shaped the Latino community this month, compiled by CNN.Author Ta-Nehisi Coates is set to write Marvel's Black Panther comic book. Women...
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Situation Report from a Culture of Reading: Part I
Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this son of York;And all the clouds that low’r’d upon our houseIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.- Richard IIIUnlike Richard, contemporary...
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ICYMI: The Last Week in Black Writing and Culture (9/25-10/2)
In NPR's Code Switch segment, Beenish Ahmen highlighted the life and work of writer Henry Dumas. I, admittedly, haven't read many of Dumas's works, but he will now be added to my list of authors to...
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Banned Books Week Recap (September 27-October 3)
In case you missed it, last week (September 27-October 3) was Banned Books Week. Put on by the American Library Association, Banned Books Week highlights books frequently challenged and banned by...
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Reading Kevin Powell's Education
Powell, Kevin. The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood. New York: Atria Books, 2015Autobiography is one of the more intriguing mixed genres of American writing. Elizabeth...
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ICYMI: The Week in Black Writing and Culture (10/2-10/9)
Dr. Jerry W. Ward Jr. reviewed author Kevin Powell's newest book, The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood.Last week was Banned Books Week. See HBW's recap here.At the New Yorker...
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Situation Report from a Culture of Reading: Part 2
Editor's note: two weeks ago we posted Situation Report from a Culture of Reading: Part 1. Below is part 2 of the post. To the slave, revolution is an imperative, a love-inspired, conscious act of...
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ICYMI: The Last Week in Black Writing and Culture (10/9-10-16)
Author Marlon James became the first Jamaican born writer to win the Man Booker prize. Marlon's book, A Brief History of Seven Killings, is an epic retelling of the 1976 assassination attempt on Bob...
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Calling All Writers: Project HBW Wants You!
The Project on the History of Black Writing is always looking for innovative works to post to our blog. We publish critical works, book reviews, creative pieces, and many other works relevant to black...
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The Project on the Future of Black Writing: Portia Owusu
Editor's Note: HBW consistently seeks out new and upcoming scholars that contribute to the canon of black literature. We feel that this new generation of scholars is crucial to both adding to and...
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