Time Period: 1867 Eleven-year-old Janie finds herself in a quandary. The War Between the States is now over, and Miss Laura, widowed mistress of Rubyhill Plantation, has told Rubyhill's former slaves they're welcome to stay or free to leave. But for Janie, where should she go? There are still dangers in the South, and so many unknowns in the North-and moving may eliminate any chance of ever finding her mother. Using actual historical events to tell the poignant story of a newly-liberated young slave girl, Janie's Freedom is an excellent read for eight- to twelve-year-old girls, teaching American history and the Christian faith at the same time.

Stories of liberation from enslavement or oppression have become central to African American women's literature. Beginning with a discussion of black women freedom narratives as a literary genre, the author argues that these texts represent a discourse on civil rights that emerged earlier than the ideas of racial uplift that culminated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An examination of the collective free identity of black women and their relationships to the community focuses on education, individual progress, marriage and family, labor, intellectual commitments and community rebuilding projects.

In Counterlife Christopher Freeburg poses a question to contemporary studies of slavery and its aftereffects: what if freedom, agency, and domination weren't the overarching terms used for thinking about Black life? In pursuit of this question, Freeburg submits that current scholarship is too preoccupied with demonstrating enslaved Africans' acts of political resistance, and instead he considers Black social life beyond such concepts. He examines a rich array of cultural texts that depict slavery—from works by Frederick Douglass, Radcliffe Bailey, and Edward Jones to spirituals, the television cartoon The Boondocks, and Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained—to show how enslaved Africans created meaning through artistic creativity, religious practice, and historical awareness both separate from and alongside concerns about freedom. By arguing for the impossibility of tracing slave subjects solely through their pursuits of freedom, Freeburg reminds readers of the arresting power and beauty that the enigmas of Black social life contain.

Attempts to understand recent changes in the canon of American literature through the aid of psychoanalytic theory.

The essays in this volume represent the most recent thinking collected on the problematics of feminism and critical theory, engaging the question of the relationship between these terms and the differences within each in terms of the other. As a whole, this piece of an extended conversation within feminism suggests both the illusory comfort of generic demarcations and the discomforting power of the play of difference. The articles are theoretically wide-ranging and provocative, offering discussion of works by such authors as Nella Larsen, Frances Harper, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker.

The role African Americans played in the Civil War.

Her husband was killed in the Great War. His wife is dead. Why not journey to the other side of the world and start again from scratch? What does it matter if they don't know each other, they will in time, after all? Norah thinks it is the most stupid idea she has ever heard. But Andrew needs no persuading. His kids are without a mother, he lives in a Lancashire town with no prospects: he can't wait to build a new life for himself in Australia. The government will even give ex-servicemen a farm, as long as they clear the land themselves. The only thing he needs is a wife to join him and time is short. Then Norah's father dies and there is nowhere for her or her daughter to go. For the first time in her life she decides to do something crazy. It may be madness to follow a man she barely knows to an untamed land of heat, spiders and endless bush far from home, but it may also be the answer to all her dreams.

An engaging examination of Black Girl Magic and its significance in American literature In Light and Legacies, author Janaka Bowman Lewis examines Black girlhood in American literature from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The representation of Black girlhood in contemporary literature has long remained underexplored. Through this literary history of "Black Girl Magic," Lewis offers one of the first studies in this rapidly growing field of study. Light and Legacies poignantly showcases the activist dimensions of creative literature through work by women writers such as Toni Morrison and Toni Cade. As vectors of protest, these stories reflect historical events while also creating an enduring space of liberation and expression. The book provides didactic and reflective portrayals of the Black experience—an experience that has long been misunderstood. In a work both enlightening and personal, Lewis brilliantly weaves accounts of her own journey together with the liberating stories that shaped her and so many others.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.