Marcellus Blount and the Case for Subfields in African American Literary Studies

One of my major discoveries over the last several months involved coming to a clearer understanding of the need to highlight subfields, not simply the field of African American literary studies. It turns out that some writings by the scholar Marcellus Blount were crucial to me getting there.

My key finding was that focusing exclusively on “the field” when referring to African American literary studies was not the best or most accurate move, since that term does not capture the range of topics and competing areas of inquiry that shape the discipline. Rather than concentrate on “the field” as a single entity, it became more productive to think in terms of subfields in African American literary studies in order to understand the varied and sometimes competing areas of study.

Early on, as I considered these ideas, I stumbled onto a 1984 bibliography, "Studies in Afro-American Literature" produced by Blount for Callaloo. Blount’s bibliography was followed by a series of additional bibliographies in Callaloo by other scholars. Blount’s bibliography includes introductory notes where he provides context for what he assembled.

Blount’s bibliography and the subsequent ones gave me a clearer view of developments based on section labels such as “Studies in Poetry,” “Studies in Fiction,” and “Studies in Individual Authors.” These categories indicated distinct areas of study. In the world of criticism that Blount and others highlighted, there were subfields, which offered a more precise way of understanding scholarly activity than the idea of a single unified field.

Without coming across that bibliographic work done by Blount, I would have had a harder time arriving at new realizations about specialization and differentiation in African American literary studies.

Related 

• Subfields in African American Literary Studies

Additional:

• Academics Remember Renowned Literary Scholar Marcellus Blount (The EDU Ledger)

• Marcellus Blount clips (Columbia Center for Oral History Research)

Black Women Detective Novelists Across Two Centuries

I wanted to see how many Black-authored detective and crime-related novels by women appear in the 20th century as opposed to the 21st century in the Literary Navigator Device.

For “Reading Form,” I selected novel, and for “Author Gender,” I selected “woman.” Using the genre filters, I selected “Crime/Detective/Mystery fiction” and then chose Early 20th century (1900–1939), Mid-20th century (1940–1965), and Late 20th century (1966–1999). I then repeated the search with only the 21st century selected.

I ended up with 8 results from the 20th century and 71 results from the 21st century. The contrast between the two periods is striking and immediately visible through the Navigator’s filtering system.

This discovery suggests that there are far more novels by Black women novelists in the 21st century. It also shows how the Navigator makes it possible to quickly identify shifts in genre participation across time.

Related:

• Navigator Discoveries

Navigator Discoveries

This series of posts provides short research-based discoveries and use cases related to the Literary Navigator Device. Each entry highlights a specific search, explains the method used, and identifies a clear pattern, contrast, or finding drawn from the results.

Entries 

• Black Women Detective Novelists Across Two Centuries

Subfields in African American Literary Studies

A brief take on subfields in African American literary studies, showing how areas like the Harlem Renaissance, Richard Wright studies, the Black Arts Movement, and Toni Morrison Studies emerged over time to organize research, debates, and scholarly communities.

Script by Howard Rambsy II
Narration by Kassandra Timm

------------ 

Related:

• Episodes of Remarkable Receptions

• Marcellus Blount and the Case for Subfields in African American Literary Studies

Alliteration as Cultural Strategy

A brief take on recurring alliteration in African American language practices, tracing how phrases like Sorrow Songs, Freedom Fighters, and New Negro Movement, use sound, rhythm, and repetition to enhance memorability, circulate ideas, and reinforce traditions of creativity, resistance, and representation.

Script by Howard Rambsy II 

Narration by Kassandra Timm

------------ 

Related:

• Episodes of Remarkable Receptions

The Convergence: When Collegiate Black Men Meet African American Literary Studies

The Convergence: When Collegiate Black Men Meet African American Literary Studies (October 2026) tells the inside story of a first-semester literature course for Black men at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, taught every fall since 2004. Drawing on twenty-plus years of classroom practice, student voices, and campus data linking the course to higher persistence and graduation rates, the book shows how early, culturally grounded engagement with poetry, speeches, rap, fiction, and visual culture fosters deep reading and intellectual confidence.

Related:

• Black Men Readers 

• Book Notes

C. Liegh McInnis's Secret Histories of Prince's Contributions

For 20 or so years, C. Liegh McInnis has been providing me and others with what I’d call the secret histories of Prince’s contributions.

McInnis will absolutely not like that title, because he’ll point out that the histories aren’t secret. It’s out there for anyone looking and interested. But he sometimes forgets he’s a Prince expert. So what’s common Prince knowledge to him isn’t so with a lot, no, most, of us.

But another reason I call it “secret” is because McInnis often passes along casual tidbits about Prince in personal correspondence or just in conversation. You’ll mention a point, “Oh, I liked that movie last week.” McInnis will go, “Me too. And I’m glad that Prince provided Jane Doe with private lessons on playing guitar, which she then used to develop a band, which included John Doe piano, whose first cousin produced that movie based on inspiration from that band.” Seriously, it’ll be like that.

Aspects of the secret histories emerged recently when I shared my reflections on the New Edition Tour. I mentioned Tevin Campbell in passing, and McInnis sent me an email noting the songs that Prince had written for Campbell. I had no idea. He then went on to mention Prince’s role in shaping shifting directions in the tone and content of R&B.

I’ll have to remember to tell my students and junior colleagues about how someone like McInnis demonstrates the power of specializing in a major figure and then following that person’s career for years, decades, and, in this case, following the band members, influences, and disciples of that person. All of that is important in African American literary studies, where we’re constantly trying to figure out whether it’s better to focus on a major figure or devote time to various less well-known writers.

McInnis has me going back and forth on that. On the one hand, it seems more democratic to focus on several less prominent figures, right? But then, how would so much knowledge about Prince and others have flowed forth if McInnis hadn’t been as laser-focused as he’s been? Would I have been the beneficiary of so many secret histories?

Related:

• A Notebook on the Work of C. Liegh McInnis

A Brief Review of the New Edition Tour

Alright folks, a quick review

I traveled to Nashville to attend the New Edition, Boys II Men, Toni Braxton concert on Friday. I enjoyed it, mostly the idea of listening to music from years, no, decades ago, and seeing the folks perform it live. For some reason, with this show, Toni Braxton felt more like a sidenote. She performed only a few songs, and the other two groups performed more. Maybe it'll be different later this week when they perform here in St. Louis. But New Edition and Boys II Men were the real highlights. They were still hitting all their notes and moves. Well, that is, except my dude Bobby Brown, who can't move like the rest of them. But he was hanging in there.

Nashville is just like St. Louis in the sense that at an R & B concert, the audience is mostly Black women. "Look at us twinning," R & B audiences say to Black church congregations. But having said that, I was reminded that it had done something deeply positive to my young mind and the youngsters in my environment back in the day as we grew up witnessing those Black boys and young Black men groups doing coordinated dance moves together as they sang. (Y’all already know, so I won’t even point out that New Edition is criminally under-credited for creating the blueprint for the white boy bands that followed.)

Back to Black girl, now senior woman audiences: The early 1980s up through the 1990s were a unique moment for the amount of wholesome, affirming songs focusing on Black girls. From the 1983 “Candy Girl” up through maybe Tevin Campbell's 1993 “Can We Talk,” it was a brief, yet golden moment for songs that placed Black girls in the spotlight in a loving, not overly sexualized kind of way. This pattern of Black girl songs was less visible or plentiful in earlier decades and, lord Jesus, far less common in subsequent decades that followed.

This show didn't invest a lot in staging, not on the levels of Mariah Carey or Usher. This was more on the lower-level production, like Fantasia or Fred Hammond & Co. As a reunion tour, I enjoyed this better than Brandy and Monica. Still, they could've added more here and there to really contextualize the time and work they've covered. We're talking about a group that formed in 1978 and debuted in 1983.

I'm sometimes reluctant to give the South too much credit, but there's this fact: Nashville has a much more robust music scene than St. Louis. Beyond the concert venue, Bridgestone Arena, their downtown scene has various live music spots and bars. The most prevalent forms are country and southern rock, and a persistent indie vibe. Y'all know I've gone to a lot of music events in St. Louis, but the city itself doesn't have a really robust infrastructure for music. Of course, Nashville is majority white, and St. Louis is majority Black. I assume that all kinds of racial barriers prevented folks in St. Louis from building structures for a thriving music scene. I get that, but still............