Date of Completion
12-1-2014
Embargo Period
12-1-2015
Keywords
Black men, masculinity, coming of age, Short Stories, African American males, teachers, fiction, African American literature, American literature, interrelated stories
Major Advisor
Ellen Litman
Associate Advisor
Patrick Hogan
Associate Advisor
V. Penelope Pelizzon
Field of Study
English
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Open Access
Open Access
Abstract
This collection of interrelated stories seeks to disrupt the prevailing narratives of African American men. These narratives are social constructions that categorizes African American men as either respectable (good) or unrespectable (bad). In these stories, I attempt to expand these narrow categories and explore other possibilities of African American manhood. Through my research and creative endeavors, I have sketched out male-spaces of dad, brother, and son as being fruitful areas where my characters and where actual male identity form. The Critical Preface analyzes the historical and current trends of African American identity formation in general and African American men’s in particular. Additionally, the preface situates my fiction within the broader context of African American male writers writing about African American men and others. Chiefly, I place my work among James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” Ernest J. Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying and In My Father’s House, and Percival Everett’s Damned If I Do. In this work, I show the relationship between my fiction and theirs, while at the same demonstrating how each of us resists the stereotypical categories of African American men, writers, and fiction.
Recommended Citation
Adisa, K. Jahi, "But They Mean to Do Right: Stories on African American Male Teachers" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 612.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/dissertations/612