The Cambridge Companion to the African American Slave Narrative

Fisch, Audrey
Audrey Fisch is Professor in the Departments of English and Elementary and Secondary Education at New Jersey City University.

The slave narrative has become a crucial genre within African American literary studies and an invaluable record of the experience and history of slavery in the United States. This Companion examines the slave narrative's relation to British and American abolitionism, Anglo-American literary traditions such as autobiography and sentimental literature, and the larger African American literary tradition. Special attention is paid to leading exponents of the genre such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, as well as many other, less well known examples. Further essays explore the rediscovery of the slave narrative and its subsequent critical reception, as well as the uses to which the genre is put by modern authors such as Toni Morrison. With its chronology and guide to further reading, the Companion provides both an easy entry point for students new to the subject and comprehensive coverage and original insights for scholars in the field.

This Companion examines the slave narrative in relation to its historical context as well as the African American literary tradition.

This Companion examines the slave narrative in relation to its historical context as well as the larger African American literary tradition. Special attention is paid to leading exponents of the genre such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, as well as many others. With its chronology and guide to further reading, the Companion provides both an easy entry point for students new to the subject and comprehensive coverage and original insights for scholars in the field.

Chronology; Introduction Audrey A. Fisch; Part I. The Slave Narrative and Transnational Abolitionism: 1. The rise, development, and circulation of the slave narrative Philip Gould; 2. Politics and political philosophy in the slave narrative Dickson D. Bruce, Jr; 3. Olaudah Equiano: African-British abolitionist and founder of the African-American slave narrative Vincent Carretta; 4. The slave narrative and the literature of abolition Kerry Sinanan; Part II. The Slave Narrative and Anglo-American Literary Traditions: 5. Redeeming bondage: the captivity narrative and the spiritual autobiography in the African American slave narrative tradition Yolanda Pierce; 6. The slave narrative and the Revolutionary tradition of American autobiography Robert S. Levine; 7. The slave narrative and sentimental literature Cindy Weinstein; Part III. The Slave Narrative and the African-American Literary Tradition: 8. The slave narrative and early Black American literature Robert F. Reid-Pharr; 9. Telling slavery in 'Freedom's' time: post-reconstruction and the Harlem Renaissance Deborah E. McDowell; 10. Neo-slave narratives Valerie Smith; Part IV. The Slave Narrative and the Politics of Knowledge: 11. Harriet Jacobs: a case history of authentication Stephanie A. Smith; 12. Frederick Douglass's self fashioning and the making of a representative American man John Stauffer; 13. Beyond Douglass and Jacobs John Ernest; 14. Black womanhood in North American women's slave narratives Xiomara Santamarina; Guide to further reading.