Background
Bruce, Dickson Davies was born on April 11, 1946 in Dallas, Texas, United States. Son of Dickson Davies and Helen (Woodcock) Bruce.
( From the earliest texts of the colonial period to works...)
From the earliest texts of the colonial period to works contemporary with Emancipation, African American literature has been a dialogue across color lines, and a medium through which black writers have been able to exert considerable authority on both sides of that racial demarcation. Dickson D. Bruce argues that contrary to prevailing perceptions of African American voices as silenced and excluded from American history, those voices were loud and clear. Within the context of the wider culture, these writers offered powerful, widely read, and widely appreciated commentaries on American ideals and ambitions. The Origins of African American Literature provides strong evidence to demonstrate just how much writers engaged in a surprising number of dialogues with society as a whole. Along with an extensive discussion of major authors and texts, including Phillis Wheatley's poetry, Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Martin Delany's Blake, Bruce explores less-prominent works and writers as well, thereby grounding African American writing in its changing historical settings. The Origins of African American Literature is an invaluable revelation of the emergence and sources of the specifically African American literary tradition and the forces that helped shape it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813920671/?tag=2022091-20
( A murder case with all the elements of melodrama -- inc...)
A murder case with all the elements of melodrama -- including seduction and betrayal, political intrigue, honor, and greed -- the Kentucky Tragedy of 1825 riveted the attention of the nation. For decades afterward, its themes resonated in American writing. With unprecedented objectivity, Dickson Bruce recounts the events of the case and offers an innovative analysis of the poems, novels, dramas, and commentary it inspired. He uncovers an intricate connection between public fascination with the Kentucky Tragedy and changing ideas about gender roles, social identity, human motivation, and freedom in the years leading up to the Civil War. Bruce provides a masterly narration of the Tragedy. Around 1819, Colonel Solomon P. Sharp, one of Kentucky's leading politicians, allegedly seduced Ann Cooke, who subsequently delivered a stillborn child she claimed was fathered by Sharp. During the summer of 1825, rumors of the scandal circulated, incensing both Cooke and her husband, Jereboam Beauchamp, who decided, with the support of his wife, that honor compelled him to kill Sharp. He did so, admitted to the act, and was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to die. On the morning of the execution, the couple attempted suicide by stabbing in Beauchamp's jail cell. Cooke died, but Beauchamp was merely wounded and met his date with the hangman later that day. The lurid story appeared widely in the popular press and captured the imaginations of many antebellum writers, including William Gilmore Simms and Edgar Allan Poe. Bruce reveals that the Kentucky Tragedy elicited more literary works than did any other episode of the period. By exploring the transformation of the Tragedy into literature, he illuminates the shifting social, political, and intellectual forces that revolutionized American life in this era.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807131733/?tag=2022091-20
Bruce, Dickson Davies was born on April 11, 1946 in Dallas, Texas, United States. Son of Dickson Davies and Helen (Woodcock) Bruce.
Bachelor, University Texas, 1967; Master of Arts, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1968; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1971.
Professor of history, University of California, Irvine, since 1971.
( From the earliest texts of the colonial period to works...)
( A murder case with all the elements of melodrama -- inc...)
(Book by Bruce, Dickson D.)
(Book by Bruce, Dickson D.)
(Book by Bruce Jr., Dickson D.)
Member Organisation American Historians, Society Historians of Early American Republic, So.Hist. Association, American History Association.
Married Mary Macreeda Watson, September 28, 1967. 1 child, Emily Sarah.