Background
Barbara Christian was born on December 12, 1943, in Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands. She was a daughter of Ruth Christian and Alphonso Christian, a judge.
1250 W Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53233, United States
In 1958, Barbara entered Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1963.
116th St & Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States
In 1964, Barbara received a Master of Arts degree and in 1970, she got a Doctor of Philosophy degree in American and British Literature from Columbia University.
(This work traces the traditions of Black American literat...)
This work traces the traditions of Black American literature and examines the novels of Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Women-Novelists-Contributions-Afro-American/dp/031320750X
1980
(This work contains essays, which discuss works by Alice W...)
This work contains essays, which discuss works by Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Gwendolyn Brooks and Audre Lorde, as well as Afro-American women's fiction, poetry and biographies in general, and the place of African-American women in literature.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Feminist-Criticism-Perspectives-Writers/dp/0807762539
1985
("New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000" collects a sele...)
"New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000" collects a selection of essays and reviews from Barbara Christian, one of the founding voices in black feminist literary criticism.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Black-Feminist-Criticism-1985-2000/dp/0252031806
1985
critic editor educator Feminist author
Barbara Christian was born on December 12, 1943, in Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands. She was a daughter of Ruth Christian and Alphonso Christian, a judge.
In 1958, Barbara entered Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1963. Later, despite the fact, that her parents urged her to pursue medicine, Christian enrolled in graduate studies in literature at Columbia University in New York City. There, Barbara became a good friend of Langston Hughes and was introduced to the works of African-American writers. In 1964, Barbara received a Master of Arts degree and in 1970, she got a Doctor of Philosophy degree in American and British Literature upon completion of her dissertation "Spirit Bloom in Harlem: The Search for Black Aesthetic during the Harlem Renaissance: The Poetry of Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and Jean Toomer".
At the beginning of her career, when Barbara was a student of Columbia University, she taught English briefly during 1963 and 1964 at both the College of the Virgin Islands (present-day University of the Virgin Islands) and Hunter College. In 1965, she was appointed a lecturer at the City College of the City University of New York and worked in a program to promote higher education among minority and underprivileged scholars, known as Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge (SEEK). In 1970, after receiving her Doctor of Philosophy degree, Christian was made an assistant professor of English at the City College.
In 1971, Barbara moved to the University of California, Berkeley, as an assistant professor. The same year, in 1971, Christian acted as a founding member and instructor at the University Without Walls. She held a post of an instructor there until 1976.
In 1972, Barbara was instrumental in the creation of the African-American Studies department at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught until her death. In 1978, she was made a chairwoman of the department, a post she continued to hold until 1983. In 1986, Christian was promoted to the post of a full professor, the first woman of African descent to do so. From 1986 to 1989, she led Berkeley's new doctoral program in ethnic studies.
In 1980, her "Black Women Novelists" was published, and her "Black Feminist Criticism" followed in 1985. In 1996, Barbara served as an editor of the "Norton Anthology of African American Literature", and her final work, "Female Subjects in Black and White", was published in 1997.
During her career, Barbara also lectured extensively in Japan, Germany, France, Canada and other countries.
(This work contains essays, which discuss works by Alice W...)
1985("New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000" collects a sele...)
1985(This work traces the traditions of Black American literat...)
1980In the introduction to "Black Feminist Criticism", Christian argued against then-current trends in literary criticism, in which the critic uses the text simply as "an occasion for espousing his or her philosophical point of view — revolutionary, black, feminist, or socialist program". As she remarked in her introduction to an essay on Paule Marshall, few black writers had yet been the subject of biographies and literary studies. The black critic’s role, she asserted, was to "call attention to the form, show how it comes out of history, a tradition, how the writer uses it".
In a paper, presented at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in 1983, reprinted in "Black Feminist Criticism", Christian admitted, that her belief in "the need to establish the historical origins and context of literature" was unfashionable, compared to many of the more abstract theoretical trends of the 1980's. But to Christian, emphasis on theory distracted critics and readers of black writing from the more urgent task of discovering and assessing a black literary tradition. This was essential, she believed, so "the cultural reproduction of the powerful" could be challenged.
Quotations: "I can only speak for myself. But what I write and how I write is done in order to save my own life. And I mean that literally. For me literature is a way of knowing that I am not hallucinating, that whatever I feel/know is."
Barbara was a member of the Modern Language Association of America, National Women's Studies Association, National Council for Black Studies and Women’s Studies Board.
Barbara was a dedicated social activist, a committed feminist literary critic and a rigorous scholar. Also, she was a generous host, avid gardener and collector of African and Caribbean art.
Physical Characteristics: Barbara suffered from lung cancer.
Quotes from others about the person
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. described Christian as "the senior figure among African-American feminists".
Barbara was married to David Henderson, a poet and a biographer of Jimi Hendrix. However, their marriage ended in divorce. She gave birth to one daughter - Najuma Ide Christian. Imetai Malik Henderson was Barbara's stepson.