New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers is a collection of critical and pedagogical essays that shed new light on the creative depths of Black women writers. On the one hand, some Black women writers have been heavily anthologized, they have more often than not been restricted by critical metanarratives. Some of their works have been lionized while others remain neglected. On the other hand, some Black women writers have been ignored and understudied. This collection corrects the gaps in our critical thinking about Black women writers by introducing them to a new generation of undergraduate and graduate students, and by presenting pedagogical essays to our colleagues currently working in the field.

Afro-Caribbean Women's Writing and Early American Literature is both pedagogical and critical. The text begins by re-evaluating the poetry of Wheatley for its political commentary, demonstrates how Hurston bridges several literary genres and geographies, and introduces Black women writers of the Caribbean to some American audiences. It sheds light on lesser-discussed Black women playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance and re-evaluates the turn-of-the century concept, Noble Womanhood in light of the Cult of Domesticity.

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction is the first large-scale reference work of its kind, critically assessing the relations of gender and genre in science fiction (SF) especially—but not exclusively—as explored in speculative art by women and LGBTQ+ artists across the world. This global volume builds upon the traditions of interdisciplinary inquiry by connecting established topics in gender studies and science fiction studies with emergent ideas from researchers in different media. Taken together, they challenge conventional generic boundaries; provide new ways of approaching familiar texts; recover lost artists and introduce new ones; connect the revival of old, hate-based politics with the increasing visibility of imagined futures for all; and show how SF stories about new kinds of gender relations inspire new models of artistic, technoscientific, and political practice. Their chapters are grouped into five conversations—about the history of gender and genre, theoretical frameworks, subjectivities, medias and transmedialities, and transtemporalities—that are central to discussions of gender and SF in the current moment. A range of both emerging and established names in media, literature, and cultural studies engage with a huge diversity of topics including eco-criticism, animal studies, cyborg and posthumanist theory, masculinity, critical race studies, Indigenous futurisms, Black girlhood, and gaming. This is an essential resource for students and scholars studying gender, sexuality, and/or science fiction.

Reading Contemporary African American Literature focuses on the subject of contemporary African American popular fiction by women. Bragg’s study addresses why such work should be the subject of scholarly examination, describes the events and attitudes which account for the critical neglect of this body of work, and models a critical approach to such narratives that demonstrates the distinctive ways in which this literature captures the complexities of post-civil rights era black experiences. In making her arguments regarding the value of popular writing, Bragg argues that black women’s popular fiction foregrounds gender in ways that are frequently missing from other modes of narrative production. They exhibit a responsiveness and timeliness to the shifting social terrain which is reflected in the rapidly shifting styles and themes which characterize popular fiction. In doing so, they extend the historical function of African American literature by continuing to engage the black body as a symbol of political meaning in the social context of the United States. In popular literature Beauty Bragg locates a space from which black women engage a variety of public discourses.

"Tomeiko Ashford Carter offers insight into the true-to-life work of a black female preacher in nineteenth-century America and shows how she helped start a revolution of "spirit writing,' a sanctuary where authors could create powerful leading heroines who live by their own brands of Christian theology. Carter also calls attention to subsequent black female writers whose fiction demonstrates the legacies of life and spirit-writing. She does not leave out black male writers whom she discovers have created their own versions of divine women since the nineteenth-century. Indeed, Power Divine provides unique insight into compelling "divine" characters."--BOOK JACKET.

Masculinity Under Construction: Literary Re-Presentations of Black Masculinity in the African Diaspora analyzes Black male identity as constructed by Black male authors. In each chapter, Dr. Jefferson-James discusses a different "construction" or definition of masculine identity produced by men of African descent on the continent of Africa, in the Caribbean, and in North America. Combing through the works of James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, Ralph Ellison, George Lamming, and other pan-African authors, Masculinity Under Construction argues for the importance of analyzing the historical context that contributed to the formation of Black male identity. Additionally, Dr. Jefferson-James draws a relationship between Black feminists and writers, such as Anna Julia Cooper and her contemporaries, and these works of literature viewed as primarily about Black masculinity.