Brian Norman, Ph.D., assistant professor of English at Loyola University Maryland, recently published Neo-Segregation Narratives: Jim Crow in Post-Civil Rights American Literature. The book examines why writers continue to write stories of life under Jim Crow long after the fall of legal segregation.
Neo-segregation narratives gained popularity beginning in the 1970s, in tandem with neo-slave narratives,” said Norman, who also directs Loyola’s minor program in African and African American Studies. “These authors, including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Wesley Brown, and Colson Whitehead, as well as filmmakers such as Spike Lee, use depictions of life under Jim Crow in their work to address contemporary concerns about national identity. This upsets dominant narratives of achieved equality by addressing persistent racial divisions.”
Norman, who joined Loyola in 2009, is a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University and earned his Ph.D. at Rutgers University. He previously authored The American Protest Essay and National Belonging and co-edited Representing Segregation: Toward an Aesthetics of Living Jim Crow, and Other Forms of Racial Division.
Neo-Segregation Narratives is available through all major booksellers.
For more information or questions regarding this story, contact Media Relations Manager Nick Alexopulos at nalexopulos@loyola.edu or 410-617-5025.