Bibliograph

In search of a beautiful freedom, new and selected essays, Farah Jasmine Griffin

Type

Label

In search of a beautiful freedom, new and selected essays, Farah Jasmine Griffin

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-349) and index

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

In search of a beautiful freedom

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1321072470

Responsibility statement

Farah Jasmine Griffin

Sub title

new and selected essays

Summary

Lively, insightful writings on Black music, feminism, literature, and events from a "masterful critic and master teacher" (Walton Muyumba, Boston Globe)In Search of a Beautiful Freedom brings together the best work from Farah Jasmine Griffin's rich forays on music, Black feminism, literature, the crises of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and the Black artists she esteems. She moves from evoking the haunting strength of Odetta and the rise of soprano popular singers in the 1970s to the forging of a Black women's literary renaissance and the politics of Malcolm X through the lens of Black feminism. She reflects on pivotal moments in recent American history--including the banning of Toni Morrison's Beloved--and celebrates the intellectuals, artists, and personal relationships that have shaped her identity and her work

Table Of Contents

Learning how to listen -- Ladies sing Miles -- When Malindy sings: a meditation on Black women's vocality -- Returning to Lady Day: a reflection on two decades "in search of Billie Holiday" -- Songs of experience: Odetta -- Quiet, stillness, and longing to be free: the ethereal soul of Syreeta Wright, Minnie Riperton, and Deniece Williams -- Following Geri's lead -- Look where your hands are now -- Wrestling till dawn: on becoming an intellectual in the age of Toni Morrison -- Albert Raboteau: an appreciation (drawn from remarks on the occasion of his retirement from Princeton University, April 26, 2013) -- Minnie's sacrifice: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's narrative of citizenship -- Zora Neale Hurston's radical individualism -- Hunting communists and negroes in Ann Petry's The Narrows -- "It takes two people to confirm the truth": the jazz fiction of Sherley Ann Williams and Toni Cade Bambara -- Learning how to listen: Ntozake Shange's work as aesthetic primer -- Remaking the everyday: the interior worlds of Kathleen Collins's fiction and film -- A place of freedom: Gayl Jones's Brazilian epic -- Treating the serpent's sting -- Textual healing: claiming Black women's bodies, the erotic, and resistance in contemporary novels of slavery -- "Ironies of the saint": Malcolm X, Black women, and the price of protection -- Conflict and chorus: reconsidering Toni Cade's The Black Women: An Anthology -- That the mothers may soar and the daughters may know their names: a retrospective of Black feminist literary criticism -- At last...?: Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, race, and history -- One crisis and possibility -- On the fourth anniversary of September 11 -- Human rights and the Katrina evacuees -- DNC day 2: will America accept First Lady Michelle? -- Loving Billie Holiday doesn't mean Black girls aren't suffering: a response to Joshua DuBois and My Brother's Keeper -- Teaching African American literature during COVID-19 -- Banning Toni Morrison's books doesn't protect kids. It just sanitizes racism -- Ancient histories and new worlds: Allison Janae Hamilton

Target audience

adult

Classification