The Other Blacklist by Mary Washington
Revealing the formative influence of 1950s leftist radicalism on African American literature and culture.
A wonderful combination of careful research, adept historicizing, and insightful close readingMary Helen Washington's book brings needed critical attention to understudied figures and helps readers rethink the careers of others whom they believe they already know. -- James Smethurst, author of The African American Roots of Modernism: From Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance and The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s [A] compelling look at artists and writers who became part of the vanguard of the progressive politics and civil rights movement of the 1960s. Booklist (starred review) Groundbreaking...thought-provoking. Publishers Weekly (starred review) Well-thought, highly readable and timely. Huffington Post Washington builds a strong and much-needed case against purely aesthetic interpretations of 1950s African American literature. Highly recommended. CHOICE Insightful, densely researched, and engaging... Washington resoundingly demonstrates the importance of the Black Popular Front to the postwar black literary tradition. Women's Review of Books Washington's brilliant, intimate and highly readable new book capstones an important era of post-Cold War scholarship of the legacy of American Communism and African American literature... no book in recent memory more boldly confronts and dismantles the political apparatus of literary commemoration. Solidarity Washington's excellent book contributes powerfully to a strand of scholarship that is transforming our understanding of post-World War II American intellectual and cultural history... Deeply researched, persuasively argued, and much-needed. Journal of American History As literary and cultural history, Washington's book offers a vast resource... Readers who are eager to place the postwar period in the context of 1930s and '40s historiography of the left as well as the period of black nationalism that followed in the 1960s will rejoice in these pages. The Los Angeles Review of Books Well-researched, informative, illuminating... By challenging the standard Cold War narrative of Communist Party irrelevance and isolation, The Other Blacklist not only promotes radical African American cultural production in the 1950's, it also highlights the very real internal and external pressures faced by communists and their allies. People's World Superbly woven together... A must-read book for those who study and teach literature, women's studies, history, African American studies, American studies, and cultural studies. Womens Studies Quarterly An extraordinary piece of scholarly research and cultural commentary. Science & Society
Mary Helen Washington is a professor in the English Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has been a Bunting Fellow at Harvard University and has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is the editor of Black-Eyed Susans: Classic Stories by Black Women Writers; Midnight Birds: Stories of Contemporary Black Women Writers; Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women; and Memory of Kin: Stories of Family by Black Writers.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780231152709 |
| ISBN 10 | 0231152701 |
| Title | The Other Blacklist |
| Author | Mary Washington |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Columbia University Press |
| Year published | 2014-04-08 |
| Number of pages | 368 |
| Prizes | Commended for William Sanders Scarborough Prize 2014 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |