Conversations with Clarence Major

Conversations with Clarence Major

Author: Clarence Major

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781578064588

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Collected interviews that show how the mind of an enormously talented and multifaceted artist works while conveying a sense of the generosity and optimism that keep him experimenting and learning


My Amputations

My Amputations

Author: Clarence Major

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2008-01-07

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1573661430

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This novel is about a man pursued by his shadow. Its protagonist is either a desperate ex-con who has become convinced that he is an important American novelist or a desperate American novelist who has become convinced that he, and most of what passes for literary life on three continents, is a con.


Dirty Bird Blues

Dirty Bird Blues

Author: Clarence Major

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-02-08

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0525508090

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A quietly influential force in African American literature and art, Clarence Major makes his Penguin Classics debut with the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Dirty Bird Blues The PRH Audio book of Dirty Bird Blues by Clarence Major won a 2022 EARPHONE AWARD. Narrated by Dion Graham. A Penguin Classic Set in post-World War II Chicago and Omaha, the novel features Manfred Banks, a young, harmonica-blowing blues singer who is always writing music in his head. Torn between his friendships with fellow musicians and nightclub life and his responsibilities to his wife and child, along with the pressures of dealing with a racist America that assaults him at every turn, Manfred seeks easy answers in "Dirty Bird" (Old Crow whiskey) and in moving on. He moves to Omaha with hopes of better opportunities as a blue-collar worker, but the blues in his soul and the dreams in his mind keep bringing him back to face himself. After a nightmarish descent into his own depths, Manfred emerges with fresh awareness and possibility. Through Manfred, we witness and experience the process by which modern American English has been vitalized and strengthened by the poetry and the poignancy of the African-American experience. As Manfred struggles with the oppressive constraints of society and his private turmoil, his rich inner voice resonates with the blues.


The Vain Conversation

The Vain Conversation

Author: Anthony Grooms

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1611178835

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“A real-life racially motivated mass killing from 1946 is boldly and deeply reimagined [in this] incisive, gripping and empathetic novel” (Kirkus, starred review). Inspired by true events, The Vain Conversation reflects on the 1946 lynching of two black couples in Georgia from the perspectives of three characters—Bertrand Johnson, one of the victims; Noland Jacks, a presumed perpetrator; and Lonnie Henson, a witness to the murders as a ten-year-old boy. Lonnie’s inexplicable feelings of culpability drive him in a search for meaning that takes him around the world, and ultimately back to Georgia, where he must confront both Jacks and his own demons. In this stirring and incisive narrative, Anthony Grooms seeks to advance the national dialogue on race relations. With complexity, satire, and surprising moments of levity, he explores what it means to redeem and be redeemed. Deeply probing the issues of American race violence, The Vain Conversation also speaks to the broader issues of oppression and violence everywhere. Foreword by poet, painter, and novelist Clarence Major. Afterward by bestselling author T. Geronimo Johnson.


Threat of Dissent

Threat of Dissent

Author: Julia Rose Kraut

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2020-07-21

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0674246179

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In this first comprehensive overview of the intersection of immigration law and the First Amendment, a lawyer and historian traces ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States from the Alien Friends Act of 1798 to the evolving policies of the Trump administration. Beginning with the Alien Friends Act of 1798, the United States passed laws in the name of national security to bar or expel foreigners based on their beliefs and associations—although these laws sometimes conflict with First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and association or contradict America’s self-image as a nation of immigrants. The government has continually used ideological exclusions and deportations of noncitizens to suppress dissent and radicalism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the War on Anarchy to the Cold War to the War on Terror. In Threat of Dissent—the first social, political, and legal history of ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States—Julia Rose Kraut delves into the intricacies of major court decisions and legislation without losing sight of the people involved. We follow the cases of immigrants and foreign-born visitors, including activists, scholars, and artists such as Emma Goldman, Ernest Mandel, Carlos Fuentes, Charlie Chaplin, and John Lennon. Kraut also highlights lawyers, including Clarence Darrow and Carol Weiss King, as well as organizations, like the ACLU and PEN America, who challenged the constitutionality of ideological exclusions and deportations under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court, however, frequently interpreted restrictions under immigration law and upheld the government’s authority. By reminding us of the legal vulnerability foreigners face on the basis of their beliefs, expressions, and associations, Kraut calls our attention to the ways that ideological exclusion and deportation reflect fears of subversion and serve as tools of political repression in the United States.


The Paintings and Drawings of Clarence Major

The Paintings and Drawings of Clarence Major

Author: Clarence Major

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2019-02-01

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1496820711

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In the first volume to collect the paintings and drawings of Clarence Major, readers are offered six decades of unique, colorful, and compelling canvases and works on paper—works of singular beauty and social relevance. These works represent Major’s personal painterly journey of passionate commitment to art. This generous selection of more than 150 paintings and drawings shows us the melding of rich ideas and fertile images, the braiding of imagination and motif. With their pleasing arrangement of elements, the works come vividly to life. Major often juxtaposes a decorative scheme with his own unique choice of color combinations, reinforced with rigorous brushstrokes that release chromatic energy. The paintings complement and challenge the great traditions of Realism, Impressionism, and Expressionism. Major is primarily a figurative and landscape painter. Here we find landscapes of singular vitality, rich in color and design, dramatic landscapes, and cityscapes representing, among other things, Major’s extensive travels in America and Europe. We are also treated to Major’s signature figurative work. In these paintings, he ventures fearlessly into familiar yet unexpected areas of richness. Also included is an introductory essay, “The Education of a Painter,” written by the artist, which further sheds light on and helps to lay a biographical, social, and historical foundation for this essential volume, reflecting a lifetime of serious commitment to painting at its best.


African-American Writers

African-American Writers

Author: Philip Bader

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1438107838

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African-American authors have consistently explored the political dimensions of literature and its ability to affect social change. African-American literature has also provided an essential framework for shaping cultural identity and solidarity. From the early slave narratives to the folklore and dialect verse of the Harlem Renaissance to the modern novels of today


Clarence Major and His Art

Clarence Major and His Art

Author: Bernard W. Bell

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780807848999

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Offers a collection of Clarence Major's poetry, fiction, and art, providing critical interpretations alongside each selection.


Postmodern Literature and Race

Postmodern Literature and Race

Author: Len Platt

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-02-19

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1107042488

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Postmodernism and Race explores the question of how dramatic shifts in conceptions of race in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been addressed by writers at the cutting edge of equally dramatic transformations of literary form. An opening section engages with the broad question of how the geographical and political positioning of experimental writing informs its contribution to racial discourses, while later segments focus on central critical domains within this field: race and performativity, race and the contemporary nation, and postracial futures. With essays on a wide range of contemporary writers, including Bernadine Evaristo, Alasdair Gray, Jhumpa Lahiri, Andrea Levy, and Don DeLillo, this volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of the politics and aesthetics of contemporary writing.