Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing [Paperback]

Turning on inspired interpretations of Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Ntozake Shange,Workings of the Spiritweighs current critical approaches to black women's writing against Baker's own explanation of the founding, theoretical state of Afro-American intellectual history.

Brilliant, and tenderly riveted to gratitude as an indispensable facet of analysis, Houston Baker arrives, yet again, bearing the loveliest flowers of his devotion and delight: thank God he's here! —June Jordan

Houston A. Baker, Jr., is professor of English and the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also directs the Center for the Study of Black Literature and Culture.

Introduction
The Daughter's Departure: Theory, History, and Late-Nineteenth-Century Black Women's Writing
1. Theoretical Returns
2. Workings of the Spirit: Conjure and the Space of Black Women's Creativity
3. On Knowing Our Place
4. The Changing Instant
Conclusion
Toward the Iterability of ONE
Afterword
Notes
Illustration Sources
Index