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 |
|---|---|
| 100 Black Novels by Decade, 1850-2010 The following list presents novels in our “100 Novels Project” organized by decade. These 100 novels constitute a relatively small number of HBW’s larger collection of more than 1,000 books. .. | |
| The Coverage of…Jesmyn Ward—National Book Award for Fiction Celebrating and honoring novelist Jesmyn Ward on receiving the National Book Award for Fiction, the Project on the History of Black Writing has compiled articles and videos featuring Ward... | |
| Professor Jerry Ward on Nikky Finney’s Heartwood When an excellent writer wins a prize, many readers rush to buy the book that won the prize. On the other hand, readers who are immunized against the herd instinct may take another option. They may take an older work by the prize winner off their bookshelves and read something they’d always meant to read but had not yet got around to reading... | |
| Jesmyn Ward: 2011 National Book Award for Fiction Recipient Jesmyn Ward was born in 1977 in DeLisle, Mississippi. Ward, a Hurricane Katrina survivor, is a southern writer, admitting to a love-hate relationship with the region she calls home. Her mother’s white employer helped to provide for her education. Racial bullying was part of her childhood experience; at one point, students threatened to lynch her... | |
| Song: The Invisible Character in “Song of Solomon” An instrumental or vocal musical track typically lingers in the background as the opening credits or initial scene of a film unfolds. Music, however, is less anticipated in the opening vignette of a novel, but Toni Morrison proves that song has a place in Song of Solomon far beyond the title. At the beginning of this novel, music serves a similar purpose that it does in film to establish and maintain the emotional mood of a scene for the audience. Yet, unlike in film, music in the opening of Song of Solomon is recognized by characters and consequently highly influential, therefore making it a character in its own respect. .. | |
| The Coverage of…Nikky Finney—National Book Award for Poetry Celebrating and honoring poet Nikky Finney on receiving the National Book Award for Poetry, the Project on the History of Black Writing has compiled articles and videos featuring Finney... | |
| Nikky Finney: 2011 National Book Award for Poetry Recipient The Project on the History of Black Writing celebrates poet Nikky Finney on receiving the National Book Award for her 2011 collection of poetry Head Off & Split (2011)... | |
| Zora Neale Hurston and Metaphors of Black Womanhood in Their Eyes Were Watching God In Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Zora Neale Hurston’s female protagonist Janie Crawford symbolizes both female empowerment and autonomy. By situating the life of character Janie Crawford as the focus of her novel, Hurston challenges perceived notions of gender in a style that provides an entrée into the communal and personal dimensions of black womanhood. .. | |
| Suffering And Redemption in Four African-American novels In a previous post, I discussed the presence of suffering as a dominant theme in African-American novels. Given the long and brutal history of black people, it is no surprise that literary renderings attempt to capture the historical and harsh treatment of a striving people. In this post, I will highlight a few novels that capture the diverse ways in which suffering is depicted. .. | |
| The Paraphernalia Of Suffering: Reflections On Beloved and Their Eyes Were Watching God James Cone’s most recent book The Cross And The Lynching Tree, have provided space for me to think about the role and importance of literary depictions of suffering in African-American life. The theme of suffering, however loud or subtle, has its place in African American literature. From slave narratives to Sonia Sanchez’s poetry, literary representations of black existential concerns have been crucial both intellectually and culturally in connecting past forms of trauma with present conditions of black life... |