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dc.contributor.advisorGraham, Maryemma
dc.contributor.authorMack, Jeffery Dwayne
dc.date.accessioned2010-01-07T17:43:49Z
dc.date.available2012-06-06T16:21:55Z
dc.date.issued2009-06-11
dc.date.submitted2009
dc.identifier.otherhttp://dissertations.umi.com/ku:10421
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1808/5647
dc.description.abstractAfrican American culture has often been seen as an ideological concept that emanates from the history of a people. It is an inclusive concept that represents, according to Houston A. Baker, "a whole way of life." In order to examine this culture, consideration must be given to the history of the people who comprise it. Specifically, we must examine how African Americans' sense of self is connected to their shared experiences and reflect their suffering as well as their advancements. For the male slave, his self-concept as well as his masculine identity is connected to his life in bondage. His masculine identity emanates from his perception of the needs of the slave community. In this dissertation, I argue that by examining what I term the Black Battlefield Codes (those culturally specific systems of knowing, understanding and interpreting the world that male slaves used to empower themselves despite an oppressive environment) we see the emergence of a masculine concept that reflects his view of himself and the world of which he is a part. By exploring the collective ethos that identifies the slave community's perceptions of sexuality, spirituality, and violence as demonstrated in the works of Henry Bibb, Reverend John Jea, and David Walker, we observe a system that black men of the era could use to express their masculine identities. Thus, this dissertation argues that the shared beliefs and moral attitudes of the slave community during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries provide the basis through which the male slave could not only begin to construct his own culturally-specific definition masculinity, but he could exact a definition of himself that would allow him to view his masculine identity separate from white men.
dc.format.extent228 pages
dc.language.isoEN
dc.publisherUniversity of Kansas
dc.rightsThis item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
dc.subjectEnglish literature
dc.subjectBlack studies
dc.subjectGender studies
dc.subjectAmerican literature
dc.subjectLiterature
dc.subjectReligion
dc.subjectSociology
dc.titleLet the Exhorter Speak: Black Masculinity and the Slave Narrative Tradition
dc.typeDissertation
dc.contributor.cmtememberTidwell, John E
dc.thesis.degreeDisciplineEnglish
dc.thesis.degreeLevelPh.D.
kusw.oastatusna
kusw.oapolicyThis item does not meet KU Open Access policy criteria.
kusw.bibid7078973
dc.rights.accessrightsembargoedAccess


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