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West Virginia University at Parkersburg
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 Phone:  304-424-8203 | Fax:  304-424-8315 

Essay by WVU Parkersburg President is featured in book on black women's literature.

CONTACT:  WVU Parkersburg President Marie Foster Gnage, 304-424-8200.
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

An essay by the president of West Virginia University at Parkersburg is featured in a nationally-released book, "Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History: Migration and Identity in Black Women's Literature."

The volume includes "Reconfiguring Self: A Matter of Place in Selected Novels by Paule Marshall," written by WVU Parkersburg President Marie Foster Gnage. Her essay considers the novels "The Chosen Place, The Timeless People;" "Praisesong for the Widow;" "Daughters," and "The Fisher King" in the context of examining place, including setting, social status and psychological point in life, and its role in transforming women's lives.

Her essay considers the novels "The Chosen Place, The Timeless People;" "Praisesong for the Widow;" "Daughters," and "The Fisher King" in the context of examining place, including setting, social status and psychological point in life, and its role in transforming women's lives.

The book is a series of essays addressing black women's fragmented identities and quests for wholeness.  The individual essays relate to the culturally specific experiences of blacks in select African countries, England, the Caribbean, the United States and Canada.  The authors examine identity struggles by establishing the "Middle Passage" as the first site of identity rupture and the subsequent break from cultural and historical moorings.  In most cases, the authors themselves have migrated from their places of origin to new spaces that present challenges. 

The Ohio State Press publication is edited by Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, professor of English at the University of Houston.

President Gnage has taught writing and topics in American literature at a variety of institutions, including Alcorn State University, Florida A&M University, Broward Community College, Central Florida Community College, Pima College, Raritan Valley Community College, and WVU Parkersburg.  She has published "A Bibliography of Southern Black Creative Writers, 1829-1953" and a number of articles on African American women writers in edited collections and scholarly journals.

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For additional information, contact:
Connie Dziagwa
WVU Parkersburg
Executive Director
Institutional Advancement
(304-424-8203)

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  • Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History: Migration and Identity in Black Women's Literature brings together a series of essays addressing black women's fragmented identities and quests for wholeness. The individual essays concern culturally specific experiences of blacks in select African countries, England, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada. They examine identity struggles by establishing the Middle Passage as the first identity rupture and the subsequent break from cultural and historical moorings. In most cases, the authors themselves have migrated from their places of origin to new spaces that present challenges. Their narratives replicate the displacement engendered by their own experiences of living with the complexities of diasporic existence. Their female characters, many of whom participate in multiple border crossings, work to define themselves within a hostile environment. In nearly every essay, the female characters struggle against multiple yokes of oppression, giving voice to what it means to be black, female, poor, old, and alone. The subjects' migrations and journeys are analyzed as attempts to heal the "displacement," both physical and psychological, that results from dislocation and relocation from the homeland, imagined variously as Africa.

    This volume reveals that black women across the globe share a common ground fraught with struggles, but the narratives bear out that these women are not easily divided and that they stand upon each other's shoulders dispensing healing balms. Black women's history and herstory commingle; the trauma that ensued when Africans were loaded onto ships in chains continues to haunt black women, and men, too,wherever they find themselves in this present moment of the diaspora.

Publisher: Ohio State University Press

 

Pub. Date: December 2006