Dividing Lines - Class Anxiety and Postbellum Black Fiction

Explores how African American literature in the late 19th century represents class divisions among black Americans. By portraying complex, highly stratified communities with a growing black middle class, authors dispelled popular notions that black Americans were uniformly poor or uncivilized. But even as the writers highlighted middle-class achievement, they worried over whether class distinctions would help or sabotage collective black protest against racial prejudice.

About the author

Andrea N. Williams is Associate Professor of English at Ohio State University.

Summary

Provides fresh insights on the intersection of race and class in black fiction from the 1880s to 1900s

Product details

• Authors: Andrea N. Williams
• Publisher: University Of Michigan Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 02.01.2013
• EAN: 9780472118618
• ISBN: 978-0-472-11861-8
• No. of pages: 232
• Series: Class: Culture (Hardcover); Class : Culture
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies