PUB: Call for Papers on Street Lit

Call for Papers on Street Lit

 

9 June 2012

 

The Takeover

Street Lit Subjects, Controversy, Commercial Phenomenon & Art

Keenan Norris, Editor

 

"First... there is a young, mass, black reading audience of such size that a black author can write for it exclusively without giving a thought to being highbrow or literary or to crossing-over for whites. Second, the taste of the masses is distinct from, and troubling to, the taste of the elite in large measure because the elite no longer control the direction and purpose of African-American literature; it is now, more than ever, a market-driven literature, rather than an art form patronized and promoted by cultured whites and blacks as it had been in the past. The fact that blacks started two of the publishing houses for these books, Urban Books and Triple Crown, underscores the entrepreneurial, populist nature of this type of race literature: by black people for black people."—Gerald Early, “What is African-American Literature?”

"Mainstream publishing houses contort themselves to acquire books that glorify wanton sex, drugs and crime. This fiction, known as street-lit or hip-hop fiction, most often reinforces the stereotypical trademarks African Americans have fought hard to overcome. "—Bernice McFadden, “Black Writers in a Ghetto of the Publishing Industry’s Making

You already know the topic and the controversy. We want to go beyond it.

THE TAKEOVER will assemble a collection of scholarly essays, articles, and interviews in order to develop the discussion around this emergent literature. Our anthology will present a wide-ranging exploration of the topic. This anthology seeks to provide more extensive and diverse opinion, information and critical analysis than any critical work on street lit has thus far. Not only will we give voice to the competing sides in the debate around street lit’s artistic validity, but we will also chronicle street lit’s history as a sub-genre within African-American letters about urban spaces and its contribution to current understandings of mass incarceration, poverty and violence in America, and the market for books by and about black people.

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Deadline for Abstracts (250-750 words): August 10, 2012

Deadline for Complete Papers (4000-7000 words): November 15, 2012

Nov.-Jan.: Review chapters, request revision

Full manuscript: February 2013

Submit full manuscript to publisher: April 2013

 

*Please include contact info and full list of credentials with all submissions

Proposals should articulate a clear critical question in relation to a set of primary and secondary texts. Completed abstracts are due August 10 and can be sent to knorris@peralta.edu . If you must send a hard copy, please email me directly beforehand. The plan is to finalize the manuscript in March and submit it to Scarecrow Press no later than April 2013. I have received strong initial interest from Scarecrow Press and have every reason to believe it will be accepted for publication on this timeline.

Possible Topics (others are very much welcome):

Market analysis: Has street lit actually taken over the market for black literature?

A definition of the genre (writers should consult Urban Grit: A Guide to Street Lit)

A history of the genre from its origins to the current day

A description of street lit’s appeal, including reasons for its appealing, and to whom it appeals

Comparative analysis of the street lit genre to other literary genres

Comparative analysis of specific street lit text(s) to other works in African-American literature

Street lit’s relationship to hip-hop on the level of subject matter and/or business and marketing

Major street lit authors and their works

Major street lit publishers

Why street lit is loved and why it is castigated

Authors, novels, memoirs and poetry of interest

 (the following are suggestions, not constraints)

Vanessa Irvin Morris, The Readers' Advisory Guide to Street Literature (in particular, a critical response to or elaboration upon the history of street lit that Morris maps out)

Sister Souljah, No Disrespect and Midnight: A Gangster Love Story

Basic Economics” by Tommy Bottoms    

50 Cent, From Pieces to Weight

Kenji Jasper, Snow

Terri Woods’ trilogies: Dutch III: International Gangster True to the Game III, True to the Game: First of a Trilogy

Colson Whitehead, Zone One: A Novel

Nathan Heard, Howard Street

[Nathan C. Heard is considered one of the forefathers of "street literature". Heard's first novel Howard Street, published in 1968, depicts the underbelly of inner-city life of Black America. Howard Street sold more than 1 million copies. Heard also wrote five other novels in the Genre. Nathan C. Heard started writing while serving a seven year sentence for armed robbery at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. After his release, Heard taught creative writing at Rutgers and appeared in several "Blaxpoitation" films. During the 1970's Heard wrote a column for the New York Times. Nathan Heard passed away in 2004 at the age of 67.]

David Bradley, South Street

[David Bradley is better known for his novel The Chaneysville Incident; it's too bad South Street has all but faded into obscurity behind the other book, because on its own, South Street is an incisive, perceptive, and devastatingly funny novel about life on the street. "South Street" takes place in Philadelphia and introduces us to Adlai Stevenson Brown, a young black man trying to make his mark as a writer; tired of being kept by his upper-class girlfriend, he leaves the rarefied air of her high-rise luxury apartment and heads for the down-and-dirty environment of the ghetto, where life is lived raw on the street. The locus of much of the action is Lightnin' Ed's Bar and Grill, presided over by Leo the bartender, a benevolent 300-pound Buddha who keeps with a pool cue behind the bar just in case, addicted to soap operas and the losing Phillies, fending off the perpetual advances of Big Betsy, an aging hooker way past her prime.]

Keenan Norris

knorris@peralta.edu 

909-553-9802

Keenan Norris holds an M.F.A. from Mills College and is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside, writing about urban literature and the publishing industry. He teaches African-American Literature, Basic Skills courses and promotes the AFFIRM program at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, California  

His work, both fiction and non-fiction, has been published in the Santa Monica, Green Mountains and Evansville Reviews, as well as ChickenBones Literary Journal, Inlandia: A Literary Journey Through California's Inland Empire and Columbia University Press's upcoming 24/7 Believe: Watching The Wire. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.—connotationpress