Arms Akimbo
Africana Women in
Contemporary Literature
Edited
by Janice Liddell and Yakini Belinda Kemp
Order
this Book now
In an examination of the fiction of contemporary women
writers of the African Diaspora, these writers engage
important texts from writers in Africa, the Caribbean,
and the United States, largely ignored by mainstream
literary scholars. They employ fresh and poignant
critical perspectives accessible to both scholars and
students. The editors provides a comprehensive historical
and critical overview of black women’s studies as it
has developed transnationally and cogently situates these
essays within this rapidly developing field.
Contents:
Introduction--Black Women's Studies and the Intellectual
Legacy: A Praise Song
I. A Birthing of Self
1. Psychic Rage and Response: the Enslaved and the
Enslaver in Shirley Anne Williams' Dessa Rose,
by Emma Waters-Dawson
2. Voyages Beyond Lust and Lactation: The Climacteric as
Seen in Novels by Sylvia Wynter, Beryl Gilroy and Paule
Marshall, by Janice Liddell
3. A Woman's Art; A Woman's Craft: The Self in Ntozake
Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, by
Carol Marsh-Lockett
4. Coming Home to Herself: Autonomy and Self-Conversion
in Flora Nwapa's One Is Enough, by Australia
Tarver
II. Relationships: Mothering, Mistressing, Marrying and
Woman to Woman--Disengaging the Family Romance
5. When Difference is not the Dilemma: The Black Woman
Couple in African American Women's Fiction, by Yakini B.
Kemp
6. 'Devouring Gods' and 'Sacrificial Animals':
Male-Female Relationship in Ama Ata Aidoo's Changes:
A Love Story, by Wei-hsung (Kitty) Wu
7. Snapshots of Childhood Life in Jamaica Kincaid's
Fiction, by Brenda Berrien
8. Fire and Ice: The Socio-Economics of Romantic Romantic
Love in Elizabeth Nunez Harrell's When Rocks Dance,
by Thelma B. Thompson Deloatch
III. War on All Fronts: Race, Class, Sex, Age and
Nationality
9. Agents of Pain and Redemption in Sapphire’s Push,
by Janice Liddell
10. Romantic Love and Individual in Novels by Mariama,
Buchi Emecheta and Bessie Head, by Yakini Kemp
11. The Politics of Exile: Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister
Killjoy, by Gay Wilentz
12. Grenadian Popular Culture and the Rhetoric of
Revolution: Merle Collins' Angel, by Carolyn
Cooper
IV. Invention and Convention: Womanist Gazes on Literary
and Critical Traditions
13. Meditations on Her/Story: Maryse Conde's I,Tituba,
Black Witch of Salem, and the Slave Narrative
Tradition, by Paula C. Barnes
14. Guyana's History, Physical Space and Class
Consciousness: The Novels of Beryl Gilroy and Grace
Nichols, by Erna Brodber
15. Romantic Fiction as a Subversive Strain in Africana
Women's Writing, by Jane Bryse and Kari Dako
16. "A Girl Marries a Monkey": The Folktale as
an Expression of Value and Change in Society, by J. N.
Opoku-Agyemang
17. Revolutionary Brilliance: The Afrofemcentric
Aesthetic, by Zain Muse
Janice Liddell, chair of the English department at Clark
Atlanta University, has written and designed textbooks
for the university’s world literature program. She
is the author of several book chapters and of articles in
Caribbean Commentary.
Yakini B. Kemp, professor of English at Florida A&M
University, is the author of articles in Belles
Lettres, CLA Journal, and Obsidian II: Black
Literature in Review.
1999. 240pp. 6 X 9.
ISBN 0-8130-1728-9 Cloth, $55.00
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"I highly recommend this collection of critical
essays to those interested in global women’s issues
as they are reflected in the fictions of Africana women
writers."—Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Anna J.
Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies, Spelman College
"Arms Akimbo will make a
difference in the way scholars and other readers tend to
compartmentalize Africana women’s experiences. It
will destroy the barriers. It will be an essential
reference for students just being introduced to Africana
women’s experiences as well as a consistent
reference for those already knowledgeable. Kemp and
Liddell have designed a thoughtful, useful text that one
will use again and again. I compliment them for their
labor in the struggle to keep women’s studies
vibrant, real, and inclusive."—Joyce
Pettis, North Carolina State University
Titles of
Related Interest:
Women's Spiritual Autobiography in
Colonial Spanish America,
Kristine
Ibsen
American Literary Mentors,
Edited by Irene
C. Goldman-Price and Melissa McFarland Pennell
The Fiction of Ellen Gilchrist,
Margaret
Donovan Bauer
Jewett and Her Contemporaries,
Edited by Karen
L. Kilcup and Thomas S. Edwards
Ronsard, Petrarch, and the
Amours,
Sara
Sturm-Maddox
Colette, Beauvoir, and Duras,
Bethany Ladimer
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