Blog Post Six

For the discussion lead project my group has been assigned the topic of African American criticism. The piece of pure theory that my group has chosen to use was from, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, which was on hold in the MiraCosta Library. This particular piece was a collaboration on African American literature and was written by Wilfred Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne Reesman, John R. Willingham and John Willingham. 

The piece gives an in depth look into the history African American literature and the ideology and methods that brought about its existence. Moreover, it gives specific examples of individual writers over an extended period of time. The piece begins by giving a history of the beginnings of African American literature, then moves on to give examples of folk and slave written literature. As a transition, the values of African American people living in colonial America are contrasted with the values of white people. Different writing samples and discussions of authors are presented as the piece moves on, through the Civil War ear to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. According to the text, African American literature did not begin to to receive mainstream attention until the 1950s. This piece of pure theory ends with a discussion on African American literature and its impact during the Black Power era and a discussion of the Black Arts. 

After discussing this piece with my group we decided that there are many different areas of our presentation where we could incorporate it. We can use the history aspect of the piece when discussing the origins of African American criticism. Also, the author of our story, “Battle Royal”, is specifically mentioned in the piece. We can use that information when we are discussing the authors life and influences in his work. There are also many other aspects of African American criticism mentioned in the piece that we will work in throughout our presentation.