University of Georgia Press Neo-segregation Narratives: Jim Crow in Post-civil Rights American Literature

Review Neo-Segregation Narratives is an expansive and inventive work of scholarship, intrepid in its declaration of a new literary tradition. . . . Norman's study leaves me reflecting on this intriguing suggestion that literature can achieve forms of 'integration' that continue to elude us in American life.--Heidi E. Bollinger "Callaloo "By defining key figures, practices, and comparative approaches, Neo-Segregation Narratives clarifies and validates the work of scholarship on the literature of the Civil Rights Movement.--Julie Buckner Armstrong "MELUS "Offering an original and provocative approach to the literary representation of segregation, Neo-Segregation Narratives demands that we think differently, and much more creatively, about the historical timeline of Jim Crow and the complex persistence of American racial divisions.--Eric J. Sundquist "author of King's Dream: The Legacy of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech "Provocative and illuminating . . . Neo-Segregation Narratives is crucial reading for anyone interested in deciphering the malleable manifestations of the color line in a postracial culture.--Elizabeth Abel "University of California, Berkeley "Norman's reorienting anatomy of his chosen texts and his energetic defense of his conceptual and methodological underpinnings gives this study a rich blend of poise and provocation that has staying power.--John S. Wright "Journal of American History " Product Description Examines literary depictions of life under Jim Crow that were written well after the civil rights movement. From Toni Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, to bestselling black fiction of the 1980s to a string of recent work by black and non-black authors and artists, Jim Crow haunts the post-civil rights imagination. This traces a narrative tradition by which writers return to a moment of stark de jure segregation to address contemporary concerns about national identity and the persistence of racial divides. About the Author Brian Norman is an assistant professor of English and the director of African and African American studies at Loyola University Maryland. He is author of The American Protest Essay and National Belonging: Addressing Division and coeditor of Representing Segregation: Toward an Aesthetics of Living Jim Crow, and Other Forms of Racial Division.