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522 Tess Chakkalakal canon as ââessential for the permanent institutionalization of the black literary tradition within departments of English, American Studies, and African American Studiesââ (xxix). This essay is an attempt to illuminate this claim by the editors of the Norton not by analyzing the texts that the editors select for inclusion, but by considering both the impulse to collect various literary texts to form a single entity called ââAfrican American literatureââ and its impact on our understanding of literature as such. I will thus compare the claims of the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature with the structure and process by which the ï¬rst African American literary anthology was brought out by James Weldon Johnson in 1922. While the diï¬erences between these two anthologies are certainly signiï¬cant, both make claims for the anthology as satisfying a growing interest in African Americans themselves. What interests me here is the relationship between literature and African Americans both anthologies maintain. In their anthology, Gates and McKay are advocating a tradition (and speciï¬cally a literary tradition) that should be taught and studied. They see ââbroader accessââ to African American literature as a sign that African Americans are full and equal members of
South Atlantic Quarterly – Duke University Press
Published: Jul 1, 2005
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