Archive - History of Black Writing Blog
The Banner image for the HBW Blog, which was published from 2011-2021.
Black Literary History Making
The HBW Blog published regularly for ten years from 2011-2021 at the URL https://projecthbw.ku.edu. During that time, it served as a major forum for the exchange of information and ideas, as well as a robust network for scholars, teachers, and students from different disciplines around the world.
Guest contributors include leading scholars and writers, but most of the posts were conceived of, researched, and written by HBW's staff of undergraduate and graduate students. Its content consists of feature editorials, book reviews, memorials, and coverage of HBW programming. Altogether, 95 writers contributed more than 750 posts.
The HBW Blog Archive is searchable by topic, month and year, and contributor name.
| Blog Post/Link | Date |
|---|---|
| Black Speculative Fiction and Octavia Butler Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel, Kindred is a skillful combination of several literary genres; it serves as a superb entre into the realm of Black Speculative Fiction and functions as a postmodern, inverse slave narrative. Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel, Kindred is a skillful combination of several literary genres; it serves as a superb entre into the realm of Black Speculative Fiction and functions as a postmodern, inverse slave narrative. Her characters’ 20th century experiencing of slavery places the work within the long tradition of slaves narratives, where individuals speak to their own experiences of direct oppression and liberation, and presents the oppositional gaze, forcing Kevin to examine racialized and gendered privilege and the impact that slavery has upon the contemporary moment. As a work of speculative fiction, Kindred takes place both in the past and a present moment. It also explores in this layered setting the strength in which seemingly disenfranchised characters hold against the dominant discourse. The temporal and spatial shifting of the work make it a difficult one to nail down. .. | |
| Toni Cade Bambara Rounding out the “30 Days of 100 Novels” series, I end by focusing on Toni Cade Bambara... | |
| Edward P. Jones Edward P. Jones is another writer in the “100 Novels Collection” who is more known for his short stories... | |
| Paul Laurence Dunbar Paul Laurence Dunbar is primarily known as a poet; however, his body of writing is extremely diverse... | |
| Langston Hughes Quite often, Langston Hughes is thought of primarily as a poet... | |
| Frederick Douglass When the name “Frederick Douglass” is uttered, often times, people think of the famous ex- social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. Rarely, though, do people think of Douglass as a fiction writer... | |
| 5 notable NYC Female Characters Helga Crane (Quicksand—Nella Larsen)—Helga Crane is a fictional character loosely based on Larsen’s experiences in her early life. .. | |
| 5 Notable NYC Male Characters 5 Notable NYC Male Characters.. | |
| Character Migrations To NYC James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) focuses on the trials of an unnamed, biracial narrator coming to grips with the tough racial realities in America... | |
| NYC Novels by decades How do we, as readers, envision New York City? How do publishing houses help to create visions of New York City?.. |