Shaping black feminist literary criticism: on intersections of legal and literary narratives

Vol.41,No.2(2015)

Karla Kovalová

https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2015-2-4

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/135026

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Abstract
Analyzing Karla FC Holloway's most recent book on literary criticism, Legal Fictions: Constituting Race, Composing Literature (2014), which explores the resonance between American literature and American jurisprudence, the paper makes a case for a new, viable trajectory within black feminist literary criticism. It argues that Holloway expands the line of black feminist (literary) scholars who have engaged in critical discussions of the construction(s) of race, offering new interpretations of black fictional works by way of engaging knowledge derived from or issues related to legal studies and/or by way of articulating legal criticism. In doing so, it demonstrates how black feminist critics continue to shape the landscape of both literary criticism and African American studies, creating a space for new conversations about and/or understandings of race in American society and culture.

Keywords:
black feminist criticism; Karla FC Holloway; law; literature; race

Pages:
57–71
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