Background
Sundquist, Eric John was born on August 21, 1952 in McPherson, Kansas, United States. Son of Laurence A. and Frances J. (Halene) Sundquist.
(Eric J. Sundquist analyses the powerful role played by fo...)
Eric J. Sundquist analyses the powerful role played by folk culture in three major African-American novels of the early 20th century: James Weldon Johnson's "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man", Zora Neale Hurston's "Jonah's Gourd Vine", and Arna Bontemps' "Black Thunder". Sundquist explains how the survival of cultural traditions originating in Africa and in slavery became a means of historical reflection and artistic creation for modern writers. He goes on to illustrate and compare the ways in which the three representative novels use aspects of African-American culture, including the folklore of slavery, Black music from spirituals to jazz, Black worship and sermonic form, and African-American resistance to slavery and segregation. "The Hammers of Creation" focuses on the unique narrative form of each of the three novels - Johnson's fictive autobiography, Hurston's ethnographic commentary combined with personal narrative, and Bontemps' historical fiction based on Gabriel's slave rebellion - to illustrate the range of fictional strategies Black writers have employed. Through their attempts to gain cultural integrity, Sundquist explains, these writers were able to recover and preserve vital aspects of African-American history. Sundquist argues that by incorporating vernacular culture and the oral tradition into their works, Johnson, Hurston and Bontemps challenge the primacy of written narrative while creating an African-American literary tradition that links the world of African ancestors and ante-bellum culture to the world of contemporary letters.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0820314609/?tag=2022091-20
Sundquist, Eric John was born on August 21, 1952 in McPherson, Kansas, United States. Son of Laurence A. and Frances J. (Halene) Sundquist.
Bachelor, University Kansas, 1974. Master of Arts, Johns Hopkins University, 1976. Doctor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 1978.
Assistant professor English Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1978-1980, University California, Berkeley, 1980-1982, associate professor, 1982-1986, professor English, 1986-1989, University of California at Los Angeles, 1989-1997, chair department English, 1994-1997. Dean Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College Arts and Sciences Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, since 1997. Visiting scholar University Kansas, 1985, director Holmes graduate seminar, 1993.
Director National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers, University California, Berkeley, 1986, 90, University of California at Los Angeles, 1994. Consultant California Council for Humanities, 1986-1987. Professor Bread Loaf School English, Middlebury (Vermont) College, 1987, 89, Sante Fe, 95.
Member fellowship committee Newberry Library., 1987, 88, 92. Director National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Seminar for Secondary School Teachers, Berkeley, 1988. Visiting professor University of California at Los Angeles, 1988.
Andrew Hilen visiting professor University Washington, 1990. Lamar Memorial lecturer in southern states Mercer University, 1991. Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt professor English Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 1992-1993.
Member fellowship consultant National Humanities Center, 1992, 93. Academy specialist in American studies Tel Aviv University, 1994. Member advisory board Colloquium for the Study of America Culture, Claremont (California) Graduate School & Huntington Library., since 1994.
(A determined study of the political evidence, of contempo...)
(Home As Found: Authority And Genealogy In Nineteenth-Cent...)
(Book by Sundquist, Professor Eric J.)
(Eric J. Sundquist analyses the powerful role played by fo...)
Member Modern Language Association (chair advisory council American literature section 1994, member executive committee division 19th Century American literature 1994-1997), American Studies Association (chair John Hope Franklin Prize committee 1993, member national council 1994-1997, member finance committee 1995-1997, and other committees), American Literature Association, Organization American Historians, Southern History Association, Southern American Studies Association (member executive committee 1993-1997), Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Tatiana Kreinine, August 14, 1982. Children: Alexandra, Joanna, Ariane.