Books in the Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies series

The first book-length study of Frank Yerby's life and work. The collection explores a myriad of topics, including his connections to the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances; readership and reception; representations of masculinity and patriotism; film adaptations; and engagement with race, identity, and religion.

Contributors to this volume explore several prominent intellectuals, from left-leaning leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois to conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell, from well-known black feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins to Marxists like Claudia Jones, to underscore the variety of black intellectual thought in the United States.

Fifty years after Freedom Summer, To Write in the Light of Freedom offers a glimpse into the hearts of the African American youths who attended the Mississippi Freedom Schools in 1964. The Mississippi Freedom Schools have served as powerful models of educational activism. Yet, little has been published that documents black Mississippi youths' responses to this profound experience.

The first study solely dedicated to exploring the power of African American haiku

Fifty years after Freedom Summer, To Write in the Light of Freedom offers a glimpse into the hearts of the African American youths who attended the Mississippi Freedom Schools in 1964. One of the most successful initiatives of Freedom Summer, more than forty Freedom Schools opened doors to thousands of young African American students.

Reveals Richard Wright's poetic vision toward the human world. These essays open up a new territory in Wright studies by tracing the development of Wright's aesthetic and its relationship to African and Japanese cultures.

Essays that reveal the public slide into disrepute of oncecherished male sports iconsEssays by Lisa Doris Alexander, Gregory J. Kaliss, Jeffrey Lane, Thabiti Lewis, Robert F. Lewis II, Shelley Lucas, Roberta J. Newman, C. Oren Renick and Joel Nathan Rosen, and Sherrie L. WilsonFame to Infamy: Race, Sport, and the Fall from Grace follows the paths of sports figures who were embraced by the general populace but who, through a variety of circumstances, real or imagined, found themselves falling out of favor. The contributors focus on the roles played by athletes, the media, and fans in describing how once-esteemed popular figures find themselves scorned by the same public that at one time viewed them as heroic, laudable, or otherwise respectable.The book examines a wide range of sports and eras, and includes essays on Barry Bonds, Kirby Puckett, Mike Tyson, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, Branch Rickey, Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jim Brown, as well as an afterword by noted scholar Jack Lule and an introduction by the editors. Fame to Infamy is an interdisciplinary volume encompassing numerous approaches in tracing the evolution of each subject's reputation and shifting public image.David C. Ogden, Pacific Junction, Iowa, is associate professor of communication at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Joel Nathan Rosen, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is assistant professor of sociology at Moravian College. He is the author of The Erosion of the American Sporting Ethos: Shifting Attitudes toward Competition.

Percival Everett (b. 1956) writes novels, short stories, poetry, and essays, and is one of the most prolific, acclaimed, yet under-examined African American writers working today. In this volume, scholars engage all of his creative production. These essays examine issues of identity, authenticity, and semiotics, in addition to postmodernism and African American and American literary traditions.

Reevaluates Charles Chesnutt's deft manipulation of the "passing" theme to expand understanding of the author's fiction and nonfiction. Nine contributors apply a variety of theories to add richness to readings of Chesnutt's works. Together the essays provide convincing evidence that "passing" is an intricate, essential part of Chesnutt's writing, and that it appears in all the genres he wielded.

History is made and remade by the availability of new documents, sources, and interpretations. Can Anything Beat White? contributes a great deal to this process. The experiences of the James family as documented in their letters challenge both representations of black people at the turn of the century as well as our contemporary sense of black Americans.

Reevaluates Charles Chesnutt's deft manipulation of the "passing" theme to expand understanding of the author's fiction and nonfiction. Nine contributors apply a variety of theories to add richness to readings of Chesnutt's works. Together the essays provide convincing evidence that "passing" is an intricate, essential part of Chesnutt's writing, and that it appears in all the genres he wielded.