TY  - GEN
T1  - Half in Shadow
A1  - Benjamin, Shanna Greene
LA  - eng
PB  - University of North Carolina Press
YR  - 2023
UL  - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/doab-20.500.12854-115877
AB  - Nellie Y. McKay (1930-2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known for coediting the canon-making Norton Anthology of African American Literature with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing, new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past? Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy. Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the white-dominated space of the American English department. Using extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings together McKay's private life and public work to expand how we think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in American culture.
SN  - 9781469661902
SN  - 9781469662534
KW  - African American Studies
KW  - American Studies
KW  - Feminist & Women's Studies
KW  - thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DN Biography and non-fiction prose::DNB Biography: general
KW  - thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBS Social groups, communities and identities::JBSL Ethnic studies
KW  - thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBS Social groups, communities and identities::JBSF Gender studies, gender groups::JBSF1 Gender studies: women and girls
ER  -