Apryl Lewis is English Instructor at Fresno City College.

Apryl Lewis’s Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies in Contemporary African American Literature examines the works of Yaa Gyasi, Tayari Jones, Jesmyn Ward, and Colson Whitehead in order discuss how bodily autonomy and reclamation of the self is possible in the face of mass incarceration, slavery and other traumas visited on black bodies through the ages. Lewis methodically sifts through these novels to unpack intergenerational trauma and catharsis in order to conjure up a healing for her readership. Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies is important for its much-needed intersectional approach to the field of trauma studies.

• IntroductionChapter 1: “Not the Being Lost, but the Being Found”: Traumatic Legacy and the Search for Home in Yaa Gyasi’s HomegoingChapter 2: What Becomes of Injustice? Shame and the Obligation of Remembrance and Love in Tayari Jones’ An American MarriageChapter 3: Reclaiming the Ghosts of Trauma’s Past: Witnessing and Testimony as Healing in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, SingChapter 4: Cora’s Resilience: The Magnitude of Trauma and Freedom in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad Conclusion

Apryl Lewis is English Instructor at Fresno City College.

Apryl Lewis’s Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies in Contemporary African American Literature examines the works of Yaa Gyasi, Tayari Jones, Jesmyn Ward, and Colson Whitehead in order discuss how bodily autonomy and reclamation of the self is possible in the face of mass incarceration, slavery and other traumas visited on black bodies through the ages. Lewis methodically sifts through these novels to unpack intergenerational trauma and catharsis in order to conjure up a healing for her readership. Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies is important for its much-needed intersectional approach to the field of trauma studies.

• IntroductionChapter 1: “Not the Being Lost, but the Being Found”: Traumatic Legacy and the Search for Home in Yaa Gyasi’s HomegoingChapter 2: What Becomes of Injustice? Shame and the Obligation of Remembrance and Love in Tayari Jones’ An American MarriageChapter 3: Reclaiming the Ghosts of Trauma’s Past: Witnessing and Testimony as Healing in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, SingChapter 4: Cora’s Resilience: The Magnitude of Trauma and Freedom in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad Conclusion

Apryl Lewis is English Instructor at Fresno City College.

Apryl Lewis’s Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies in Contemporary African American Literature examines the works of Yaa Gyasi, Tayari Jones, Jesmyn Ward, and Colson Whitehead in order discuss how bodily autonomy and reclamation of the self is possible in the face of mass incarceration, slavery and other traumas visited on black bodies through the ages. Lewis methodically sifts through these novels to unpack intergenerational trauma and catharsis in order to conjure up a healing for her readership. Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies is important for its much-needed intersectional approach to the field of trauma studies.

• IntroductionChapter 1: “Not the Being Lost, but the Being Found”: Traumatic Legacy and the Search for Home in Yaa Gyasi’s HomegoingChapter 2: What Becomes of Injustice? Shame and the Obligation of Remembrance and Love in Tayari Jones’ An American MarriageChapter 3: Reclaiming the Ghosts of Trauma’s Past: Witnessing and Testimony as Healing in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, SingChapter 4: Cora’s Resilience: The Magnitude of Trauma and Freedom in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad Conclusion