Half in Shadow The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay
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....
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Format: | Electronic Book Chapter |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina Press
2021
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | OAPEN Library: download the publication OAPEN Library: download the publication OAPEN Library: description of the publication |
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Summary: | 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. |
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Physical Description: | 1 electronic resource (280 p.) |
ISBN: | 9781469661902_Benjamin 9798890859693 9781469662534 9781469661902 9781469661889 |
Access: | Open Access |