Imagining The African American West (Race And Ethnicity In The American West)

Features of Imagining the African American West (Race and Ethnicity in the American West)

The literature of the African American West is the last racial discourse of the region that remains unexplored Blake Allmendinger addresses this void in literary and cultural studies with Imagining the African American Westthe first comprehensive study of African American literature on the early frontier and in the modern urban American WestAllmendinger charts the terrain of African American literature in the West through his exploration of novels histories autobiographies science fiction mysteries formula westerns melodramas experimental theater and political essays as well as rap music and film He examines the histories of James P Beckwourth and Oscar Micheaux slavery the Civil War and the significance of the American frontier to blacks and the Harlem Renaissance the literature of urban unrest rap music black noir and African American writers including Toni Morrison and Walter Mosley His study utilizes not only the works of wellknown African American writers but also some obscure and neglected works outofprint books and unpublished manuscripts in library archivesMuch of the scholarly neglect of the Black West can be blamed on how the American West has been imagined constructed and framed in scholarship to date In his study Allmendinger provides the appropriate theoretical cultural and historical contexts for understanding the literature and suggests new directions for the future of black western literature