Williams Wells Brown: A Man of Letters
Due Date: 10-15-2024
William Wells Brown is the author of many firsts in African American literature—the first play, novel, and travel narrative—that did much to establish the tropes and motifs that would become its conventions. While Brown’s most taught and studied writings continue to be his autobiographical Narrative (1847) and his novel Clotel (1853), his literary career and political activism should not be reduced to these two works and the antebellum period. Indeed, as a prolific man of letters who published in five separate decades, Brown merits greater scholarly engagement with the breadth and influence of his literary works.
This call for papers seeks contributors for a volume of essays devoted to the richness of William Wells Brown’s literary contributions. Editors April Logan (Salisbury Univ.) and Joe Conway (Univ. of Alabama, Huntsville) are most interested in considerations of Brown’s less studied writings and speeches. They also welcome papers that chart new approaches to his antebellum work, such as how Brown—an obsessive reviser of his own writing—adapted it to fit the new historical, cultural, and sociopolitical contexts of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The goal of this essay collection is to do critical justice to the length, eclecticism, and legacy of Brown’s literary career.
Some texts and contexts to take up might include
- Brown’s oratory in America and his late 1877 speaking tour through England and Scotland
- Brown’s engagement with music and poetry, such as in The Anti-slavery Harp (1848)
- Brown as a playwright and performer (ex., The Escape [1858])
- Brown’s interest in visual culture, such as in his Original Panoramic Views (1849)
- Brown and the Black Atlantic, including his travel narratives such as Three Years in Europe: or, Places I have Seen and People I have Met (1852); “Visit of a Fugitive Slave to the Grave of Wilberforce” in Autographs for Freedom (1854); and American Fugitive in Europe. Sketches of Place and People Abroad (1855).
- Brown’s historical imagination and the archive, his development as a historian, or his place in the Black historiographical tradition in works like Domingo: Its Revolution and Its Patriots (1855); The Black Man (1862); The Negro in the American Rebellion (1867); and The Rising Son (1873)
- Brown’s innovations in traditional genres, such as his mixture of autobiography, politics, and humor in My Southern Home: or, The South and Its People (1880)
- Brown’s many revisions, such as Miralda’s 1860–1 publication in The Anglo-African and Clotelle’s 1864 publication in Redpath’s “Books for the Campfire Series”
A university press has shown strong interest in this project. The editors seek proposals of 250–300 words as well as a short CV describing the scholarly work of potential contributors. Proposals from graduate students and contingent faculty members are very much welcome. Please submit proposals to aclogan@salisbury.edu and jpc0018@uah.edu by 15 October 2024. Final essays will be expected by 15 June 2025.