Ain't I an Anthropologist: Zora Neale Hurston Beyond the Literary Icon (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780252044960)

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 socio-cultural and institutional values and processes shape the different ways we read her work? Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall considers the polar receptions to Hurston's two 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 an overdue reassessment of Zora Neale Hurston's place in American cultural and intellectual life.

Author: Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall
ISBN-10: 0252044967
ISBN-13: 9780252044960
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Language: English
Published: 02/28/2023
Pages: 272
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.06h x 6.14w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 02/15/2023 pg. 14
Choice 12/01/2023