Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Wuppertal, course: Black British Neo-Slave Narratives, language: English, abstract: This paper focuses on the importance of remembering the slave trade in all his cruel facets. Therefore, the genre of the original slave narrative and the genre of the neo-slave narrative is introduced. The second part of the paper provides an analysis of the novel 'Blonde Roots', by Bernardine Evaristo (2009). The colonial era and the legacy of slavery left a serious mark on the whole world; Especially present-day Great Britain has to face the consequences of its role in colonialism ever since. Between 1500 and 1900, nearly 12 million African slaves were brought from their homeland to America and to Europe. Via the Transatlantic Slave Trade, British ships sent rare cargoes, like rum, cotton wool and gunpowder to Africa, in exchange for potential slaves. When the slave ships arrived in the 'New World'2, African slaves were forced brutally to harvest coffee, sugar and tobacco on plantations. Eventually, the British ships, filled with the plantation yield, settled to their home ports in Europe.

After discerning the social and historical factors surrounding its first appearance in the 1960s, Neo-Slave Narratives explores the complex relationship between nostalgia and critique, while asking how African American intellectuals at different points between 1976 and 1990 remember and use the site of slavery to represent cultural debates that arose during the sixties."--BOOK JACKET.

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Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Ruhr-University of Bochum, course: African American Novel, language: English, abstract: The research question of this essay is, to what extend can features of a slave narrative be incorporated into a contemporary novel as "Push" and which features have to be altered in order to reflect specific cultural realities. Sapphire’s first novel (1996) is told in the African American vernacular voice of obese and illiterate 16-year-old Claireece Precious Jones who lives with her abusive mother in Harlem. The novel begins with Precious being pregnant with her second child by her father, who has been repeatedly raping her since childhood. After being expelled from high school due to her pregnancy, she is placed in an alternative school program where she learns to read and write with a group of other young women. As she becomes literate, her life begins to change. Of the several essays written on "Push" most authors have focused on topics such as race and social class, food consumption and obesity, disability and the female body, rape, incest and trauma as well as on the topic of transformation. Only Riché Richardson has established a relationship between "Push" and the slave narrative in his essay “Close Up: Push, Precious, and New Narratives of Slavery in Harlem” by showing recurring slave narrative motifs including “Precious’ detachment from her mother and father, her sexual and physical abuse, and her quest for literary and freedom” (163). In this essay, I will go a step further and not only focus on the similarities between "Push" and the slave narrative, but also discuss which impact the differences such as the replacement of the antebellum South into an urban setting and the replacement of slave holders into abusive and exploiting parents have on the narrative. I will begin the essay with a contextual chapter on the genre of slave narrative and its defining features. Then, I will focus on Sapphire’s "Push" and illustrate the differences to a slave narrative focusing on the urban setting of Harlem and the parents as tormentors. In a next step, I will discuss the similarities between "Push" and the slave narrative focusing on the themes of abuse and exploitation, as well as literacy, transformation and finally on escaping and being a free member of society.

NeoSlave Narratives is a study in the political, social, and cultural content of a given literary form--the novel of slavery cast as a first-person slave narrative. After discerning the social and historical factors surrounding the first appearance of that literary form in the 1960s, NeoSlave Narratives explores the complex relationship between nostalgia and critique, while asking how African American intellectuals at different points between 1976 and 1990 remember and use the site of slavery to represent the crucial cultural debates that arose during the sixties.

My thesis, "Reaching into the present, growing into the past: The neo-slave narrative's innovation on historical slave narratives and contemporary black consciousness," approaches the neo-slave narrative genre as an innovative genre that both reinterprets the historical record to create a long history of slavery and show how the socioeconomic issues that slavery perpetuate through time and affect individuals in the contemporary moment. To accomplish this task, I have deployed an aesthetic study of the neo-slave narrative and how those aesthetics are in conversation with the historical record. After establishing common aesthetic features in the neo-slave narrative, I then shift my study to show how a neo-slave narrative can use its literary features to dismantle and deconstruct power structures in the contemporary era by focusing on the comedic slave narrative. While the comedic slave narratives use humor across their text, the use of comedy is more interrogative in nature and gives its protagonists observational powers that are a critical feature in comedies to criticize and question extant power structures. The comedic slave narrative is reliant on postcolonial and Marxist theories, and the thesis makes use of Althusser's theories on interpellation and Fanon's establishment of internalized racism to understand the forces that continue to colonize the black political consciousness in post-slavery life. However, comedy as an interrogative tool dismantles these structures to show how individuals can resist and grow in a social structure that is hostile to black independence.

A comprehensive, chronological overview of American literature in three scholarly and authoritative volumes A Companion to American Literature traces the history and development of American literature from its early origins in Native American oral tradition to 21st century digital literature. This comprehensive three-volume set brings together contributions from a diverse international team of accomplished young scholars and established figures in the field. Contributors explore a broad range of topics in historical, cultural, political, geographic, and technological contexts, engaging the work of both well-known and non-canonical writers of every period. Volume One is an inclusive and geographically expansive examination of early American literature, applying a range of cultural and historical approaches and theoretical models to a dramatically expanded canon of texts. Volume Two covers American literature between 1820 and 1914, focusing on the development of print culture and the literary marketplace, the emergence of various literary movements, and the impact of social and historical events on writers and writings of the period. Spanning the 20th and early 21st centuries, Volume Three studies traditional areas of American literature as well as the literature from previously marginalized groups and contemporary writers often overlooked by scholars. This inclusive and comprehensive study of American literature: Examines the influences of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and disability on American literature Discusses the role of technology in book production and circulation, the rise of literacy, and changing reading practices and literary forms Explores a wide range of writings in multiple genres, including novels, short stories, dramas, and a variety of poetic forms, as well as autobiographies, essays, lectures, diaries, journals, letters, sermons, histories, and graphic narratives. Provides a thematic index that groups chapters by contexts and illustrates their links across different traditional chronological boundaries A Companion to American Literature is a valuable resource for students coming to the subject for the first time or preparing for field examinations, instructors in American literature courses, and scholars with more specialized interests in specific authors, genres, movements, or periods.