The Journey BackUniversity of Chicago Press, 1980 - 198 pages "Professor Baker offers the richest analysis we have of black literature in its full cultural context. A superb literary critic, a sophisticated student of culture and society, Baker is himself a very talented writer, deeply engaged in the literary-cultural 'journey' he describes. The result is a major work of interdisciplinary scholarship and humanistic criticism which will remain for years to come an authoritative treatment of the subject. The Journey Back is a landmark not only in the study of black literature but in American studies in general. No one interested in our culture can afford to ignore it."—Sacvan Bercovitch, Columbia University |
Contents
Terms for Order Acculturation Meaning and the Early Record of the Journey | 1 |
Autobiographical Acts and the Voice of the Southern Slave | 27 |
Sightings Black Historical Consciousness and the New Harbors of the Fifties | 53 |
In Our Own Time The Florescence of Nationalism in the Sixties and Seventies | 77 |
The Black Spokesman as Critic Reflections on the Black Aesthetic | 132 |
Black Creativity and American Attitudes | 144 |
Common terms and phrases
abolitionist acculturation African Amiri Baraka anthropology Auld Autobiographical Acts Baldwin become Black Aesthetic black American black American culture black American literature black artist Black Arts Movement black creativity black culture black literary texts black literature black nation black nationalist black spokesmen black writers called chapter Christian concept consciousness context Dead Lecturer Delany discourse Ellison essays example existence experience force Frederick Douglass freedom Hammon Home human ideals journey language LeRoi Jones liberation linguistic literary criticism means move myths Narrative narrator narrator's Neal Negro nigger offers Phillis Wheatley poem poet poetry political Preface race Ralph Ellison reader relationship Revolutionary Richard Wright role seems semantic sense Shadow and Act sixties slave slavery social society speech statement strategy structures suggest terms for order tion tradition unique University Press utterances Vassa's verbal voice W. E. B. Du Bois Washington West Western Wheatley's white American white world words Wright York