What does it mean for Black diasporic writers to travel to Africa? Focusing on the period between the 1990s and 2010s, Isabel Kalous examines autobiographical narratives of travel to Africa by African American and Black British authors. She places the texts within the long tradition of Black diasporic engagement with the continent, scrutinizes the significance of Black mobility, and demonstrates that travel writing serves as a means to negotiate questions of identity, belonging, history, and cultural memory. To provide a framework for the analyses of contemporary narratives, her study outlines the emergence, development, and key characteristics of the multifaceted genre of Black travel writing. Authors discussed include, among others, Saidiya Hartman, Barack Obama, and Caryl Phillips.
Price: $55.00
Pages: 274
Publisher: transcript publishing
Imprint: transcript publishing
Series: American Culture Studies
Publication Date:
15 January 2022
Trim Size: 8.86 X 5.83 in
ISBN: 9783837659535
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration
This book will be beneficial for scholars who pursue research on this topic.
— Erica L. Williams
Isabel Kalous is an alumna of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at the University of Giessen, Germany, where she completed her dissertation in English and American Literature in 2020. Her research interests include African American literature, slavery and cultural memory, transnational American studies, and cultural mobility studies.
Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
Acknowledgements 7
1. Points of Departure: Tracing Roots/Routes to Africa 9
2. On the Current State of Research 15
3. Route Map: Theoretical Premises, Methods, and Objectives of this Study 25
1. Black Im/Mobilities Past and Present 31
2. Diasporic Return and the Significance of Africa in the Black Imagination 48
1. Defining the Terms: Genre and Genealogy 63
2. The Transnational Slave Narrative and the Roots of Black Travel Writing 76
3. Developments and Trajectories 91
1. (Re)Writing Roots 115
2. Disenchanting Africa 144
3. Searching for Home 180
4. Tracing Routes 213
Introduction 249
Bibliography 255
