Ain't I an Anthropologist

Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall is an associate professor in the Department of English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University.

"As the public, scholars, writers, and creatives continue to engage with Hurston through ongoing book releases, studies, documentaries, and festivals, Freeman Marshall’s work provides an important intervention that calls us to think about how we reconstruct and deploy Hurston as not only a talented storyteller and incisive ethnographer but also a consummate intellectual." --Another Chicago "Freeman Marshall makes clear that Hurston’s reputation as an anthropologist has been undermined by the glamour of her rediscovery and subsequent literary 'canonization' . . . . Freeman Marshall also compellingly argues that 'Hurston’s anthropological work has not been more fully recognized within the field of anthropology in part due to the marginalization of American folklore and in, in particular, African American folklore within the discipline.' Hopefully, with this new study, Hurston’s contributions to anthropology will finally be recognized." --Southern Review of Books "Doomed to obscurity, Zora Neale Hurston was then resurrected as a 'founding mother' of Black literature and folklore. Yet her pioneering work in African diaspora ethnography and anthropology, especially her work in Haiti, remains little-known. . . . Marshall concludes that Hurston’s refusal to be defined as 'tragically colored' formed her genius as she 'embraces . . . the right to feel and be herself, idiosyncratic and sometimes puzzling, like any member of the human race.'" --Booklist starred review "An insightful read about how academic obscurity can pigeonhole the legacy of Black women thinkers. Hurston’s fascination, esteem, and passion to capture, preserve and return to the African diaspora their new world folk traditions used academic methods and Africana means to share our interior selves. . . . Freeman Marshall contends that 'contextualization and a commitment to interdisciplinarity remain central' to excavating Hurston. This excavation serves as a prism through which collective literary and cultural works can contribute to transformative ways of reading and understanding the hybrid Black feminist agency and legacy crafted by Zora Neale Hurston by her people for her people and humanity writ large." --Black Perspectives "A fascinating examination into the work of Zora Neale Hurston as an anthropologist, which has been all but forgotten, especially in comparison to her work as a writer and cultural icon. " --Ms. Magazine “Jennifer Freeman Marshall combines razor sharp analysis and clear prose that compel the reader to think carefully and critically about why Zora Neale Hurston is lionized in literature and marginalized in anthropology. Like a quilt, Freeman Marshall’s book has a strong frame, an aesthetically pleasing design, and an impeccable yet creative logic.”--Lee D. Baker, author of Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture "Freeman Marshall unfolds a Hurston whose anthropological work contributed to her ramified sense of difference and variegation in the lived world. Hurston emerges as situated simultaneously in her selfhood and her experience as a Black woman. As an anthropologist, Hurston tells stories that are 'multiple and ... grounded by ... diverse communities.’ Recommended." --Choice "Undoubtedly, Ain't I an Anthropologist should be essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology, as well as African American literature and folklore studies. With its careful and exhaustive documentation of the Black feminist literary and anthropological scholarship on Hurston's oeuvre, this book is both an archive and a treasure trove of information about Zora Neale Hurston that teaches us how to approach her work in new ways." --American Anthropologist

• Acknowledgments Introduction: “Twice as Much Praise or Twice as Much Blame”On Firsts, Foremothers, and “The Walker Effect”Signifying “Texts”: The Race for HurstonDeconstructing an Icon: Tradition and Authority“Ain’t I an Anthropologist?”Mules and Men: “Negro folklore [. . .] is still in the making”The author arrives at no conclusion”? Reading Tell My HorseNotes Works CitedIndex