{"product_id":"excavating-exodus-joshua-laurence-cohen-9781638041757","title":"Excavating Exodus: Biblical Typology and Racial Solidarity in African American Literature","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eExcavating Exodus\u003c\/em\u003e analyzes adaptations of Exodus in novels, newspapers, and speeches from the antebellum period to the Civil Rights era. Although Exodus has perennially served to mobilize resistance to oppression, Black writers have radically reinterpreted its meaning over the past two centuries. Changing interpretations of Moses' story reflect evolving conceptions of racial identity, religious authority, gender norms, political activism, and literary form. Black writers transformed Moses from a paragon of race loyalty into an avatar of authoritarianism. \u003ci\u003eExcavating Exodus\u003c\/i\u003e identifies a rhetorical tradition initiated by David Walker and carried on by Martin Delany and Frances Harper that treats Moses' loyalty to his fellow Hebrews as his defining characteristic. By the twentieth century, however, a more skeptical group of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and William Melvin Kelley, associated Moses with overbearing charismatic authority. This book traces the transition from Walker, who treated Moses as the epitome of self-sacrifice, to Kelley, who considered Moses a flawed model of leadership and a threat to individual self-reliance. By asking how Moses became a touchstone for notions of racial belonging, \u003cem\u003eExcavating Exodus\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates how Black intellectuals reinvented the Mosaic model of charismatic male leadership. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Joshua Laurence Cohen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 163804175X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781638041757\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Clemson University Press W\/ Lup\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/06\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 232\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.68lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.52d","brand":"Joshua Laurence Cohen","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46962657657087,"sku":"9781638041757","price":49.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_335fbc12-9640-42dc-bac1-e578dc15253e.jpg?v=1750652130","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/excavating-exodus-joshua-laurence-cohen-9781638041757","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}