Unexpected Places:
Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature
by Eric Gardner
University Press of Mississippi, 2009
This call for a large-scale rethinking of the nineteenth-century African American literary landscape features case studies on early Black authors and texts in sites surrounding St. Louis, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.
Awards:
*Winner of the 2010 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize
*A 2010 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
*Sole Honorable Mention for the 2010 Thomas J. Lyon Book Award, Western Literature Association
Praise for Unexpected Places:
“Unexpected Places is a prescient and subtle book only half of whose power lies in what it says; the other half resides in what it summons others to say and do.” --African American Review
Unexpected Places “promise[s] to redefine assumptions and approaches for years to come.” --American Literary Scholarship
“Gardner presents his prodigious archival efforts as a generous invitation. . . . His book gives us the beginnings of a whole new map.” --American Literature
“Gardner’s meticulous readings of works produced outside the familiar territory of African American literature and culture located in the northeast does much to expand our idea about what constituted African American literature in the period and who was writing it.” --American Quarterly
“[T]his well-written volume stands as an invitation to rethink the matter of where to look for nineteenth-century black American literature.” --Callaloo
“In this provocative and important study, Gardner . . . revises much of what the academy has understood about African American literature. . . . Summing Up: Essential.” Four stars. --Choice
“Eric Gardner’s fascinating Unexpected Places makes a convincing, recovery-based argument for reassessing the essential character and location of African American literary production in the nineteenth-century United States. . . . The effectiveness of Unexpected Places derives from its accretive force. To read this volume is to experience a continuous layering of newly recovered black biographies and texts that together communicate the expansive vitality of the nineteenth-century African American literary marketplace.” --Criticism
“Although Gardner ends his introduction by wishing that his work will ‘contribute to its own obsolescence,’ I believe that his daring juxtaposition of texts will do just the opposite. His use of black mobility in its connection to geography and place rather than racial uplift serves as a catalyst for critics and teachers of African American literature to expand our notion of black experiences before, during, and after the Civil War. . . . Unexpected Places reminds us that the pioneering work of broadening the canon is never done. . . .” --MELUS
Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature
by Eric Gardner
University Press of Mississippi, 2009
This call for a large-scale rethinking of the nineteenth-century African American literary landscape features case studies on early Black authors and texts in sites surrounding St. Louis, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.
Awards:
*Winner of the 2010 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize
*A 2010 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
*Sole Honorable Mention for the 2010 Thomas J. Lyon Book Award, Western Literature Association
Praise for Unexpected Places:
“Unexpected Places is a prescient and subtle book only half of whose power lies in what it says; the other half resides in what it summons others to say and do.” --African American Review
Unexpected Places “promise[s] to redefine assumptions and approaches for years to come.” --American Literary Scholarship
“Gardner presents his prodigious archival efforts as a generous invitation. . . . His book gives us the beginnings of a whole new map.” --American Literature
“Gardner’s meticulous readings of works produced outside the familiar territory of African American literature and culture located in the northeast does much to expand our idea about what constituted African American literature in the period and who was writing it.” --American Quarterly
“[T]his well-written volume stands as an invitation to rethink the matter of where to look for nineteenth-century black American literature.” --Callaloo
“In this provocative and important study, Gardner . . . revises much of what the academy has understood about African American literature. . . . Summing Up: Essential.” Four stars. --Choice
“Eric Gardner’s fascinating Unexpected Places makes a convincing, recovery-based argument for reassessing the essential character and location of African American literary production in the nineteenth-century United States. . . . The effectiveness of Unexpected Places derives from its accretive force. To read this volume is to experience a continuous layering of newly recovered black biographies and texts that together communicate the expansive vitality of the nineteenth-century African American literary marketplace.” --Criticism
“Although Gardner ends his introduction by wishing that his work will ‘contribute to its own obsolescence,’ I believe that his daring juxtaposition of texts will do just the opposite. His use of black mobility in its connection to geography and place rather than racial uplift serves as a catalyst for critics and teachers of African American literature to expand our notion of black experiences before, during, and after the Civil War. . . . Unexpected Places reminds us that the pioneering work of broadening the canon is never done. . . .” --MELUS
