Overview

Explores how novelists of the mid-century US South invented small towns to aesthetically undermine racial segregation Investigates the role of writing in the civil right movementExplores neglected writersUncovers new readings of canonical textsModels a new form of critical reading based on close textual analysisInterrogates the relationship between literary production and social protestAnalysing the ubiquity of the small town in fiction of the mid-century US South, Living Jim Crow is the first extended scholarly study to explore how authors mobilised this setting as a tool for racial resistance. With innovative close readings of Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Lillian Smith, Byron Herbert Reece, Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and William Melvin Kelley, the book traces the relationship between activism and aesthetics during the long civil rights movement. Lennon reframes a narrative of southern literature during the period as one as one characterised by an aesthetics of protest, identifying a new mode of reading racial resistance and the US South.

Full Product Details

9781474461573

Table of Contents

Reviews

"A highly imaginative, sensitive study, Living Jim Crow contributes mightily to an understanding of the modern, racially divided South through critical explorations of the fictional versions of the region's small town. With that Lennon helps create a more complex notion of southern literature.-- ""Richard H. King, University of Nottingham"""

A highly imaginative, sensitive study, Living Jim Crow contributes mightily to an understanding of the modern, racially divided South through critical explorations of the fictional versions of the region's small town. With that Lennon helps create a more complex notion of southern literature.-- ""Richard H. King, University of Nottingham""

Author Information

Gavan Lennon is Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Culture at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available