Ain't I an Anthropologist
Zora Neale Hurston Beyond the Literary Icon
Focusing on Hurston’s literary reception and groundbreaking anthropology
Cloth – $110
978-0-252-04496-0
Paper – $27.95
978-0-252-08710-3
eBook – $14.95
978-0-252-05415-0
Publication Date
Paperback: 02/28/2023
Cloth: 02/28/2023
Cloth: 02/28/2023
Series: The New Black Studies Series
About the Book
Iconic as a novelist and popular cultural figure, Zora Neale Hurston remains underappreciated as an anthropologist. Is it inevitable that Hurston’s literary authority should eclipse her anthropological authority? If not, what sociocultural and institutional values and processes shape the different ways we read her work? Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall considers the polar receptions to two of Hurston’s areas of achievement by examining the critical response to her work across both fields. Drawing on a wide range of readings, Freeman Marshall explores Hurston’s popular appeal as iconography, her elevation into the literary canon, her concurrent marginalization in anthropology despite her significant contributions, and her place within constructions of Black feminist literary traditions.Perceptive and original, Ain’t I an Anthropologist is a long-awaited reassessment of Zora Neale Hurston’s place in American cultural and intellectual life.
About the Author
Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall is an associate professor in the Department of English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University.Reviews
"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 reviewRelated Titles
