Sapphire’s Literary Breakthrough

DoVeanna S. Fulton is Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Gender and Race Studies at the University of Alabama.

"This volume presents many essays for addressing a range of themes relevant to African American and feminist literatures and is a valuable addition to any collection of young adult or adult literary criticisms." - Journal of American Culture "As a first-of-its kind, groundbreaking critical treatment of Sapphire's prose and poetry, Sapphire's Literary Breakthrough offers a refreshing look at the nuances and contributions of a writer whose most known for the novel (named Push)-turned-film Precious. Readers are drawn so deeply into dialogue with Sapphire's Push that it will leave them both exhilarated and compelled to buy Sapphire's works and read each one. To say this is simply a celebration of Sapphire or Push would not capture the value of this volume or its emphatic insistence on the ubiquity of an underlying feminist pedagogy; this is a rich set of essays, which analyzes the contours of Sapphire's works, and lay bare the fragility of Black lives within the context of a sociopolitical environment driven by a multifaceted state apparatus. No matter whether it is welfare, sexual violence, literacy, civic displacement, or psychological and emotional fragmentation, each essay candidly invites you into a world that is unmistakably complex and unforgettably real, but reminds you of a social justice imperative." -Ronald L. Jackson II, author of Masculinity in the Black Imagination and Scripting the Black Masculine Body in Popular Media 'This collection of essays on PUSH ranges from the most nuanced treatment of critical issues to the intricacies of classroom dynamics in teaching a challenging, controversial, and provocative text ... While these essays are assuredly rooted in solid scholarship, they are equally rooted in loving appreciation for a groundbreaking artist who is finally receiving the scholarly attention that her unique works warrant.' - Trudier Harris, Professor of English, The University of Alabama, and J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English Emerita, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "A welcome addition to African American literary criticism ... This volume raises important issues relevant to the sociocultural and historical contexts of African Americans that need to be examined, critiqued, and healed." - Sonja L. Lanehart, Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and the Humanities, Department of English, University of Texas at San Antonio

• Introduction: PUSHing Boundaries, PUSHing Art PART I: TRANSFORMATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS 1. Sapphire's PUSH : Locating Safe Sites for Writing and Personal Transformation; Lynette D. Myles 2. 'Bombs Cost More than Welfare': Rethinking 'Responsibility' in Sapphire's PUSH ; Toni Fellela 3. Multiple Oppressions, 'Multiple Consciousness,' and the Spirit of Harriet Tubman in Sapphire's PUSH ; Barbara McCaskill PART II: BODY AND PLACE 4. 'Spiky Green Life': Environmental Justice Themes in Sapphire's PUSH ; Joni Adamson 5. Un-'Freak'ing Black Female Self: Grotesque-Erotic Agency and Ecofeminist Unity in Sapphire's PUSH ; Elizabeth McNeil 6. Sapphire's PUSH for Erotic Literacy and Black Girl Sexual Agency; L. H. Stallings 7. Awakening to Self-Love in PUSH : Understanding the Significance of Sapphire's Harlem; Wilfred D. Samuels PART III: PEDAGOGY AND THE ACADEMY 8. Looking for 'the Alternative[s]': Locating Sapphire's PUSH in African American Literary Tradition through Literacy and Orality; DoVeanna S. Fulton Minor 9. Deconstructing the 'Pedagogy of Abuse': Teaching Child Sexual Abuse Narratives; Elizabeth McNeil 10. 'Rock the Motherfucking House': Guiding a Study of Sapphire's PUSH ; Neal A. Lester 11. Why does Precious have to Lighten Up or Shuffle? Teaching with Lee Daniels's 'Adaptation'; Christopher Burrell and James Wermers PART IV: ENGAGING THE WORK, ENGAGING THE WRITER 12. PUSH ing to Precious: A Compilation and Annotation of Works by and about Sapphire; Eric Parks