Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Histories of the Present
- Part II African American Genres
- 4 Afrofuturism and the Speculative Turn
- 5 The Black Lyric
- 6 Neo-Slave Imaginaries
- 7 Incarceration and Confinement Literature
- 8 Satire, Comedy, and Critique
- 9 Popular Romance and Literary Undergrounds
- Part III Mapping New Identities and Geographies
- Part IV Critical Approaches
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
6 - Neo-Slave Imaginaries
from Part II - African American Genres
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2023
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Histories of the Present
- Part II African American Genres
- 4 Afrofuturism and the Speculative Turn
- 5 The Black Lyric
- 6 Neo-Slave Imaginaries
- 7 Incarceration and Confinement Literature
- 8 Satire, Comedy, and Critique
- 9 Popular Romance and Literary Undergrounds
- Part III Mapping New Identities and Geographies
- Part IV Critical Approaches
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
This chapter examines the different aspects of enslaved Africans’ humanity that writers of neo-slave narratives felt was limiting, dehumanizing, or incomplete. To do this, this chapter also investigates the changing trends in the study of the sociology and history of enslaved Africans, speeches by Ossie Davis, and the writings of Octavia Butler, Angela Davis, and Toni Morrison – all of which contributed to ideas about black humanity. This chapter turns the kaleidoscope of neo-slave narrative by looking at a narrower, yet significant, angle of political life, form, and style of being Black and human, in the context of trends in mass consumption that gave shape to the landscape of this fiction about slavery.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023