African American Literature in Transition, 1750–1800: Volume 1

Rhondda Robinson Thomas is the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University specializing in early African American literature. She is the author of Claiming Exodus: A Cultural History of Afro-Atlantic Identity, 1770-1903 (2013). Her essays have appeared in African American Review, American Literary History, and the Oxford Handbook of the African American Slave Narrative. She is a member of the Society of Early Americanists.

Introduction: Impatient of oppression in early African American writing in transition Rhondda Robinson Thomas; Part I. Limits and Liberties of Early Black Print Culture: 1. Early black evangelical writing and the radical limitations of print Joseph Rezek; 2. The circulation of early black Atlantic literature Eric D. Lamore; 3. What makes a text 'Black'? from authorship to metadata Jordan Alexander Stein; Part II. Black Writing and Revolution: 4. African Americans writing themselves into history during the age of revolution Daniel C. Littlefield; 5. African American writing in the era of independence Thomas J. Davis; 6. Black literary engagement with the Haitian revolution Ronald Angelo Johnson; Part III. Early African American Life in Literature: 7. Reading and building a Nation; or everyday living (while Black) in early America Tara Bynum; 8. Respectability politics and early African American literature Cassander L. Smith; 9. Early black futures Brigitte Fielder; Part IV. Evolutions of Early Black Literature: 10. Black authors and British National identity, 1763-1791 Ryan Hanley; 11. The competing demands of early African American literature, 1783-1798 Katy L. Chiles; 12. Black letters close the eighteenth century John Saillant; Bibliography.