Recent Directions in African American Literary Criticism

Baker and Redmond’s Afro-American Literary Study in the 1990s came about as the proceeds of a conference featuring the “leading scholars of Afro-American literature.” Its format consists of seven papers/chapters and two respondents to each. While the published document could not present the kind of dialogue that was shared by the complete host of participants, this format outlines past and future Black literary criticism, its contradictions and ambivalences. The agenda for future Black criticism is mediated by a constructive self-reflexivity that expands the field’s perspectives rather than producing consensus.