Half in Shadow The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay
Benjamin, Shanna Greene
Half in Shadow The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay - Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina Press 2021 - 1 electronic resource (280 p.)
Open Access
Nellie Y. McKay (1930-2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known for coediting the canon-making with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing, new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past? Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy. Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the white-dominated space of the American English department. Using extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings together McKay's private life and public work to expand how we think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in American culture.
Creative Commons
English
9781469661889 9781469661902 9781469661902_Benjamin 9781469662534 9798890859693
10.5149/9781469661902_Benjamin doi
Biography: literary
Black & Asian studies
Gender studies: women
African American biography African American literature African American women--careers and professions African American women--higher education African Americans--correspondence African Americans--intellectual life and history Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Black students at Harvard Black studies at Harvard Black Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Black Studies in the Midwest Black women and the archives Darwin Turner and early black critics feminist memoir Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Nell Irvin Painter Nellie Y. McKay Norton Anthology of African American Literature pioneers of Black feminist thought Queens College SEEK program student Toni Morrison Zora Neale Hurston
Half in Shadow The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay - Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina Press 2021 - 1 electronic resource (280 p.)
Open Access
Nellie Y. McKay (1930-2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known for coediting the canon-making with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing, new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past? Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy. Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the white-dominated space of the American English department. Using extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings together McKay's private life and public work to expand how we think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in American culture.
Creative Commons
English
9781469661889 9781469661902 9781469661902_Benjamin 9781469662534 9798890859693
10.5149/9781469661902_Benjamin doi
Biography: literary
Black & Asian studies
Gender studies: women
African American biography African American literature African American women--careers and professions African American women--higher education African Americans--correspondence African Americans--intellectual life and history Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Black students at Harvard Black studies at Harvard Black Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Black Studies in the Midwest Black women and the archives Darwin Turner and early black critics feminist memoir Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Nell Irvin Painter Nellie Y. McKay Norton Anthology of African American Literature pioneers of Black feminist thought Queens College SEEK program student Toni Morrison Zora Neale Hurston