Providing an excellent example of why folk artists can be appreciated as carriers of knowledge, even if they are unaware of it, this book could change the ways we understand and appreciate American folk arts. Connecting a sharecropper from Georgia in the Southern United States to a protector and healer

Providing an excellent example of why folk artists can be appreciated as carriers of knowledge, even if they are unaware of it, this book could change the ways we understand and appreciate American folk arts. Connecting a sharecropper from Georgia in the Southern United States to a protector and healer

Fifty-one essays by writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as critics and academics such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. examine the central texts and arguments in African American literary theory from the 1920s through the present. Contributions are

"How an illiterate farm worker in rural Georgia rose to become an artist of international acclaim is the story of Mary Padgelek's In the Hand of the Holy Spirit: The Visionary Art of J.B. Murray. Padgelek tells Murray's fascinating story and analyzes his art and spiritual message. Throughout history

The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be forms an extended consideration not only of Harryette Mullen’s own work, methods, and interests as a poet, but also of issues of central importance to African American poetry and language, women’s voices, and the future

"Focusing primarily, though not exclusively, on the southeastern United States, the book examines works ranging from James Hampton's well-known Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly (now part of the Smithsonian collection), to several elaborately decorated yards and gardens, to smaller-scale acts of commemoration, protection, and

For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Encyclopedia of American Folk Art web site. This is the first comprehensive, scholarly study of a most fascinating aspect of American history and culture. Generously illustrated with both black and white and full-color photos, this A-Z encyclopedia covers every

Outsider art has exploded onto the international art scene, gaining widespread attention for its startling originality and visual power. As an expression of raw creativity, outsider art remains associated with self-taught visionaries, psychiatric patients, trance mediums, eccentric outcasts, and unschooled artistic geniuses who create things outside of mainstream artistic trends