eBook

White Scholars/African American Texts

Long, Lisa A., McKay, Nellie Y.

2005

Overview

What makes someone an authority? What makes one person's knowledge more credible than another's? In the ongoing debates over racial authenticity, some attest that we can know each other's experiences simply because we are all \"human,\" while others assume a more skeptical stance, insisting that racial differences create unbridgeable gaps in knowledge. Bringing new perspectives to these perennial debates, the essays in this collection explore the many difficulties created by the fact that white scholars greatly outnumber black scholars in the study and teaching of African American literature. Contributors, including some of the most prominent theorists in the field as well as younger scholars, examine who is speaking, what is being spoken and what isnot, and why framing African American literature in terms of an exclusive black/white racial divide is problematic and limiting. In highlighting the \"whiteness\" of some African Americanists, the collection does not imply that the teaching or understanding of black literature by white scholars is definitively impossible. Indeed such work is not only possible, but imperative. Instead, the essays aim to open a much needed public conversation about the real and pressing challenges that white scholars face in this type of work, as well as the implications of how these challenges are met.

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Subject: academia / academic discourse / academic responsibility / African American authors / African American literature / African American Studies / African Americans / African Americans -- Historiography / African Americans -- Intellectual life / African Americans -- Study and teaching (Higher) / American / American literature / American literature -- African American authors -- Study and teaching / authenticity / authority / bias / black scholars / blackwhite binary / challenge / critical race theory / cross-cultural understanding / cultural appropriation / cultural competence / cultural literacy / cultural sensitivity / curriculum design / debate / diversity / Education, Higher / Education, Higher -- Political aspects -- United States / Education, Higher -- Social aspects -- United States / ethical considerations / Ethnic Studies / faculty / Higher education / historical context / Historiography / human / Intellectual life / Intellectuals / interdisciplinary / interpretation / intersectionality / knowledge / Language & Literature / Lisa Long / literary canon / LITERARY CRITICISM / LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General / LITERARY CRITICISM / General / Literature / lived experience / marginalization / pedagogy / Political aspects / power dynamics / privilege / psychology / public conversation / race / Race relations / racial differences / racial divide / racial dynamics / racial identity / representation / scholarly objectivity / Social aspects / SOCIAL SCIENCE / SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies / Sociology / students / Study and teaching / Study and teaching (Higher) / Teachers, White / Teachers, White -- United States / Teaching / teaching challenges / tokenism / U.S.A / United States / United States -- Race relations / white scholars / whiteness studies / Whites / Whites -- United States -- Intellectual life / work
• ISBN: 9780813537733, 0813537738, 0813535980, 9780813535982, 0813535999, 9780813535999