Call for Papers
Approaches to Teaching Charles Chesnutt

Editors: Susanna Ashton, Clemson University
Bill Hardwig: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Essays on Approaches to Teaching Charles Chesnutt are sought for a collection to be developed as a project for consideration by the MLA Approaches to Teaching series. We are in conversation with the MLA editorial offices about a longer proposal that will necessarily contain a list of committed contributors with a broad range of approaches and backgrounds.

We envision the project going well beyond the familiar topics of his conjure tales and his most visible book Marrow of Tradition (1901). Indeed, Chesnutt's career is marked by several fascinating essays on race in American culture, two prominent collections of short stories, and several novels that vary in tone, approach, narrative perspective, and subject matter. We feel that the variety in Chesnutt's literary output will lead to a dynamic and exciting teaching collection.

We will still welcome essays about teaching the Conjure Tales or Marrow of Tradition, never fear! We just wish to make sure other submissions are also encouraged.

We envision essays with ideas for teaching Chesnutt in different sorts of institutions (community colleges, small liberal arts schools, and research universities, possibly even high schools or prisons or summer enrichment programs), as well as in different contexts (southern literature, magazine writing, African American literature, regionalism, American humor, realism, the gothic, the literature of business, the black bourgeoisie, hypertext, Ethnic Studies, Early Harlem Renaissance, etc.).

We solicit essays that address the challenges and rewards of helping students navigate his brilliant but often unfamiliar dialect writing, as well as essays that offer new approaches to helping students unpack the fraught and subtle politics of race, gender, and class explored in so many of Chesnutt's works.

Please submit a brief c.v. and an essay proposal of not more than 500 words to sashton@clemson.edu or whardwig@utk.edu by 30 October 2013. We shall be submitting the proposal in its entirety by January 2014. Complete drafts of accepted essays will be due by 15 August 2014. Finished essays should be 2,000-5,000 words in length.