Authored Books
Representing the Race: A New
Political History of African American Literature
In this book, I analyze the political value of African American literature from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama. I examine texts ranging from pamphlets and autobiographies to poems and fiction so that I could parse the myths that have come to define African American political activism in recent decades.
“Gene Andrew Jarrett’s Representing the Race is an ambitious, engaging, and intelligent attempt to reconsider the relationship between African American literature and political history...Representing the Race should be of value to anyone interested in the political and social relevance of African American literature.”
— Andrew B. Leiter, Studies in American Culture
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Deans and Truants: Race and
Realism in African American
Literature
In this book, I trace the shifting definitions of African American literature and the authors who wrote beyond those boundaries at the cost of critical dismissal and, at times, obscurity. I show that, from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, de facto literary deans prescribed the shifting parameters of realism and racial subject matter appropriate to authentic African American literature, while truant African American authors wrote literature anomalous to those standards.
“While challenging the standard notion of black literature, this readable, engaging work also provides insightful analyses of such understudied works as Morrison's short story 'Recitatif,' Yerby's historical novel The Foxes of Harrow, and Schuyler's satirical novel Black No More.”
— Choice
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Edited Books
The Wiley-Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature (Volume 1: 1746-1920 & Volume 2: 1920-Present)
I edited a comprehensive collection of poems, short stories, novellas, novels, plays, autobiographies, and essays authored by African Americans from the eighteenth century until the present. Evenly divided into two volumes, this is also the first such anthology to be conceived and published for both classroom and online education in the new millennium.
“Expansive, instructive, fascinating and surprising, this magnificent anthology is pieced together with superb editorial judgment and offers insights on every page. Here is a rich, many-voiced literary tradition unfolding across the centuries in all its exhilarating diversity and unmatched power. Certain to become seminal and essential, this is a treasure that belongs on all our bookshelves.”
― Zoe Trodd, University of Nottingham
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A Companion to African American Literature
I compiled and edited a series of essays by fellow scholars that explore the forms, themes, genres, historical contexts, major authors, and latest critical approaches to African American Literature.
“A master archivist and historian of African American literature, Gene Jarrett has assembled a compelling new collection of essays for this necessary addition to the study of African American writing and thought. The volume offers a comprehensive survey of the African American canon, but also goes in new directions, giving fresh emphasis to the earliest writing of African Americans as well as to the exciting field of Latino/-a writing in the African Diaspora. This is a field-defining collection.”
— Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
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The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar
I co-edited and reprinted the four novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar, in which readers can explore the characters, landscape, atmosphere, and visionary sensibilities of this preeminent African American writer.
“This collection shows that (Dunbar) was on his way to becoming a great novelist when he died in 1906.”
— Dayton Daily News
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The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation, and African American Culture
With Henry Louis Gates, Jr., I co-edited a collection of more than one hundred canonical and lesser-known essays published between 1892 and 1938 that examine the issues of race and representation in African American culture.
“The New Negro is a valuable collection of essays that is accessible to scholars, teachers, and those generally interested in African-American history. When placed within the context of recent New Negro scholarship, the anthology reinforces the need to expand the depth and breadth of research into Post-Reconstruction representations of race in African-American culture.”
— Gabriel A. Briggs, Callaloo
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A Long Way from Home, by Claude McKay
I edited and reprinted the 1937 autobiography, A Long Way from Home, by Claude McKay, one of the most prolific and sophisticated African American writers of the early twentieth century. This book will challenge readers to rethink McKay’s articulation of identity, art, race, and politics, and to situate these topics in terms of his oeuvre and his literary contemporaries between the World Wars.
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African American Literature Beyond Race: An Alternative Reader
In this book, I provided a companion-piece to Deans and Truants, editing and reprinting a variety of non-canonical fiction avoiding racial realism, such as African American protagonists, social settings, cultural symbols, and racial-political discourse.
“As intriguing as it is provocative, this volume requires us to probe the reasons why these texts or authors have been red-lined from the canons of both American literature and African American literature. Bravo to Jarrett and his all-star cast of contributors for helping us re-imagine our literary heritage in fresh and constructive ways!”
— Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Stanford University
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The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar
In this book, I co-edited and reprinted the 104 stories written by Paul Laurence Dunbar between 1890 and 1905, which reveal his attempts to maintain his artistic integrity while struggling with America’s racist stereotypes.
“What we have been presented with here is a Herculean task of scholarship.”
― Ohioana Quarterly
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