Rewriting Memory: The New Aesthetic of African American Cultural Memory

Abstract

Michael Basseler's study of contemporary African American literature and culture shows the complex relations and interconnections between memory and literature. To compensate for existing shortcomings of both the fields of literary and cultural studies, Basseler develops a specifically African American cultural narrative theory. In this connection he demonstrates the theoretical and social potential of novels for African American cultural memory. Basseler's argument for a "memorial rewriting" stems from his assumption of a change in how the contemporary generation of African Americans remembers, represents, and deals with the legacies of the African American past. His close reading of a great range of contemporary African American novels by Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, Edward P. Jones, Colson Whitehead, Paul Beatty, and others in the second part of the work builds the practical complement to his theoretical foundation.