The Negro and his folklore in nineteenth century periodicals
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Published: 1977
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The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals
Author: Bruce Jackson
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2014-06-30
Total Pages: 399
ISBN-13: 0292768591
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the eyes of many white Americans, North and South, the Negro did not have a culture until the Emancipation Proclamation. With few exceptions, serious collecting of Negro folklore by whites did not begin until the Civil War—and it was to be another four decades before black Americans would begin to appreciate their own cultural heritage. Few of the earlier writers realized that they had observed and recorded not simply a manifestation of a particular way of life but also a product peculiarly American and specifically Negro, a synthesis of African and American styles and traditions. The folksongs, speech, beliefs, customs, and tales of the American Negro are discussed in this anthology, originally published in 1967, of thirty-five articles, letters, and reviews from nineteenth-century periodicals. Published between 1838 and 1900 and written by authors who range from ardent abolitionist to dedicated slaveholder, these articles reflect the authors’ knowledge of, and attitudes toward, the Negro and his folklore. From the vast body of material that appeared on this subject during the nineteenth century, editor Bruce Jackson has culled fresh articles that are basic folklore and represent a wide range of material and attitudes. In addition to his introduction to the volume, Jackson has prefaced each article with a commentary. He has also supplied a supplemental bibliography on Negro folklore. If serious collecting of Negro folklore had begun by the middle of the nineteenth century, so had exploitation of its various aspects, particularly Negro songs. By 1850 minstrelsy was a big business. Although Jackson has considered minstrelsy outside the scope of this collection, he has included several discussions of it to suggest some aspects of its peculiar relation to the traditional. The articles in the anthology—some by such well-known figures as Joel Chandler Harris, George Washington Cable, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Mason Brown, and Antonin Dvorak—make fascinating reading for an observer of the American scene. This additional insight into the habits of thought and behavior of a culture in transition—folklore recorded in its own context—cannot but afford the thinking reader further understanding of the turbulent race problems of later times and today.
The Annotated African American Folktales (The Annotated Books)
Author: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
Published: 2017-11-14
Total Pages: 1437
ISBN-13: 0871407566
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWinner • NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction) Winner • Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award Holiday Gift Guide Selection • Indiewire, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis Star-Tribune These nearly 150 African American folktales animate our past and reclaim a lost cultural legacy to redefine American literature. Drawing from the great folklorists of the past while expanding African American lore with dozens of tales rarely seen before, The Annotated African American Folktales revolutionizes the canon like no other volume. Following in the tradition of such classics as Arthur Huff Fauset’s “Negro Folk Tales from the South” (1927), Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men (1935), and Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly (1985), acclaimed scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar assemble a groundbreaking collection of folktales, myths, and legends that revitalizes a vibrant African American past to produce the most comprehensive and ambitious collection of African American folktales ever published in American literary history. Arguing for the value of these deceptively simple stories as part of a sophisticated, complex, and heterogeneous cultural heritage, Gates and Tatar show how these remarkable stories deserve a place alongside the classic works of African American literature, and American literature more broadly. Opening with two introductory essays and twenty seminal African tales as historical background, Gates and Tatar present nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics, but also stories like “The Talking Skull” and “Witches Who Ride,” as well as out-of-print tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman. Beginning with the figure of Anansi, the African trickster, master of improvisation—a spider who plots and weaves in scandalous ways—The Annotated African American Folktales then goes on to draw Caribbean and Creole tales into the orbit of the folkloric canon. It retrieves stories not seen since the Harlem Renaissance and brings back archival tales of “Negro folklore” that Booker T. Washington proclaimed had emanated from a “grapevine” that existed even before the American Revolution, stories brought over by slaves who had survived the Middle Passage. Furthermore, Gates and Tatar’s volume not only defines a new canon but reveals how these folktales were hijacked and misappropriated in previous incarnations, egregiously by Joel Chandler Harris, a Southern newspaperman, as well as by Walt Disney, who cannibalized and capitalized on Harris’s volumes by creating cartoon characters drawn from this African American lore. Presenting these tales with illuminating annotations and hundreds of revelatory illustrations, The Annotated African American Folktales reminds us that stories not only move, entertain, and instruct but, more fundamentally, inspire and keep hope alive. The Annotated African American Folktales includes: Introductory essays, nearly 150 African American stories, and 20 seminal African tales as historical background The familiar Brer Rabbit classics, as well as news-making vernacular tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman An entire section of Caribbean and Latin American folktales that finally become incorporated into the canon Approximately 200 full-color, museum-quality images
America's Folklorist
Author: Lawrence R. Rodgers
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2014-10-20
Total Pages: 293
ISBN-13: 0806186291
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFolklorist, writer, editor, regionalist, cultural activist—Benjamin Albert Botkin (1901–1975) was an American intellectual who made a mark on the twentieth century, even though most people may be unaware of it. This book, the first to reevaluate the legacy of Botkin in the history of American culture, celebrates his centenary through a collection of writings that assess his influence on scholarship and the American scene. Through his work with the Federal Writers' Project during the New Deal, the Writers' Unit of the Library of Congress Project, and the Archive of American Folksong, Botkin did more to collect and disseminate the nation's folk-cultural heritage than any other individual in the twentieth century. This volume focuses on Botkin's eclectic but interrelated concerns, work, and vision and offers a detailed sense of his life, milieu, influences, and long-term contributions. Just as Botkin boldly cut across the boundaries between high and low, popular and folk, this book brings together reflections that range from the historical to the philosophical to the disarmingly personal. One group of articles looks at his career and includes the first extended analysis of Botkin's poetry; another probes the fruitful relationships Botkin had with leading musicologists, composers, poets, and intellectuals of his day. This is also the first book to bring together a collection of Botkin's best-known writings, giving readers an opportunity to appreciate his wide-ranging mind and clear, often memorable prose. For Botkin, the blurring of art and science, literature and folklore was not just a philosophy but a way of life. This book reflects that life and invites fans and those new to Botkin to appraise his lasting contributions.
Black Magic
Author: Yvonne P. Chireau
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2006-11-20
Total Pages: 234
ISBN-13: 0520249887
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBlack Magic looks at the origins, meaning, and uses of Conjure—the African American tradition of healing and harming that evolved from African, European, and American elements—from the slavery period to well into the twentieth century. Illuminating a world that is dimly understood by both scholars and the general public, Yvonne P. Chireau describes Conjure and other related traditions, such as Hoodoo and Rootworking, in a beautifully written, richly detailed history that presents the voices and experiences of African Americans and shows how magic has informed their culture. Focusing on the relationship between Conjure and Christianity, Chireau shows how these seemingly contradictory traditions have worked together in a complex and complementary fashion to provide spiritual empowerment for African Americans, both slave and free, living in white America. As she explores the role of Conjure for African Americans and looks at the transformations of Conjure over time, Chireau also rewrites the dichotomy between magic and religion. With its groundbreaking analysis of an often misunderstood tradition, this book adds an important perspective to our understanding of the myriad dimensions of human spirituality.
This Land that I Love
Author: John Shaw
Publisher: Public Affairs
Published: 2013-11-05
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 161039223X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA narrative history of the writing of This Land Is Your Land and God Bless America discusses the conflicts and common ground between the two classic anthems, revealing how Woody Guthrie composed one as a reflection of Great Depression realities as a rebuttal to Irving Berlin's equally complex song, written partly in response to the rise of Hitler.
Folktales and Fairy Tales [4 volumes]
Author: Anne E. Duggan Ph.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2016-02-12
Total Pages: 2815
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEncyclopedic in its coverage, this one-of-a-kind reference is ideal for students, scholars, and others who need reliable, up-to-date information on folk and fairy tales, past and present. Folktales and fairy tales have long played an important role in cultures around the world. They pass customs and lore from generation to generation, provide insights into the peoples who created them, and offer inspiration to creative artists working in media that now include television, film, manga, photography, and computer games. This second, expanded edition of an award-winning reference will help students and teachers as well as storytellers, writers, and creative artists delve into this enchanting world and keep pace with its past and its many new facets. Alphabetically organized and global in scope, the work is the only multivolume reference in English to offer encyclopedic coverage of this subject matter. The four-volume collection covers national, cultural, regional, and linguistic traditions from around the world as well as motifs, themes, characters, and tale types. Writers and illustrators are included as are filmmakers and composers—and, of course, the tales themselves. The expert entries within volumes 1 through 3 are based on the latest research and developments while the contents of volume 4 comprises tales and texts. While most books either present readers with tales from certain countries or cultures or with thematic entries, this encyclopedia stands alone in that it does both, making it a truly unique, one-stop resource.
The Slave in the Swamp
Author: William Tynes Cowa
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-09-13
Total Pages: 296
ISBN-13: 1135470529
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFirst Published in 2005. In 19th century plantation literature, the runaway slave in the swamp was a recurring bogey-man whose presence challenged myths of the plantation system. By escaping to the swamps with its wild and threatening connotations, the runaway gained an invisibility that was more threatening to the institution than open rebellion. In part, the proslavery plantation novel served to transform that image of the free slave in the swamp from its untouchable, abstract state to a form that could be possessed, understood, and controlled. Essentially, writers defending the institution would conjure forth the rebellious image in order to dispel it safely.
Slavery, Race and American History
Author: John David Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-03-04
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 1317459865
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThese essays introduce the complexities of researching and analyzing race. This book focuses on problems confronted while researching, writing and interpreting race and slavery, such as conflict between ideological perspectives, and changing interpretations of the questions.
The Banjo
Author: Laurent Dubois
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2016-03-14
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 0674968832
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe banjo has been called by many names over its history, but they all refer to the same sound—strings humming over skin—that has eased souls and electrified crowds for centuries. The Banjo invites us to hear that sound afresh in a biography of one of America’s iconic folk instruments. Attuned to a rich heritage spanning continents and cultures, Laurent Dubois traces the banjo from humble origins, revealing how it became one of the great stars of American musical life. In the seventeenth century, enslaved people in the Caribbean and North America drew on their memories of varied African musical traditions to construct instruments from carved-out gourds covered with animal skin. Providing a much-needed sense of rootedness, solidarity, and consolation, banjo picking became an essential part of black plantation life. White musicians took up the banjo in the nineteenth century, when it became the foundation of the minstrel show and began to be produced industrially on a large scale. Even as this instrument found its way into rural white communities, however, the banjo remained central to African American musical performance. Twentieth-century musicians incorporated the instrument into styles ranging from ragtime and jazz to Dixieland, bluegrass, reggae, and pop. Versatile and enduring, the banjo combines rhythm and melody into a single unmistakable sound that resonates with strength and purpose. From the earliest days of American history, the banjo’s sound has allowed folk musicians to create community and joy even while protesting oppression and injustice.
