With a series of brilliant and provocative essays, Susan Willis has produced the first sustained, book-length study of fiction by contemporary American black women writers. Using a Marxist approach, Willis places the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Paule Marshall, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Toni Cade Bambara in a critical context that includes history, culture, politics, and literary theory. Willis’ work promises to make a major impact among scholars, students, and general readers interested in contemporary fiction, Afro-American culture, women’s studies, American studies, and the conjunction of literary and political theory.    The tradition of literary criticism about black women writers has, until now, focused primarily on establishing the existence of these writers and defining the contexts within which they may be appreciated. Willis goes further by looking at the literary ramifications of particular themes that run throughout the works of major writers in this tradition—her most pivotal one being the movement from the past to the future, from girlhood to womanhood. Her approach is different from those of previous works in that she focuses strongly on these writers’ literary modes—narrative, metaphor, etc.—and demonstrates how these modes are themselves essential aspects of their ideas as well as their process.    Willis establishes that the novelists she treats are not only historians who document the problems of capitalist industrial society but also visionaries who imagine for their characters alternative modes of work, community, and economy, toward which readers may look as they approach the future. 

Specifying: Black women writing the American experience (The Wisconsin project on American writers)

Willis, Susan

Literature & Fiction

WISCONSIN

With a series of brilliant and provocative essays, Susan Willis has produced the first sustained, book-length study of fiction by contemporary American black women writers. Using a Marxist approach, Willis places the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Paule Marshall, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Toni Cade Bambara in a critical context that includes history, culture, politics, and literary theory. Willis’ work promises to make a major impact among scholars, students, and general readers interested in contemporary fiction, Afro-American culture, women’s studies, American studies, and the conjunction of literary and political theory. The tradition of literary criticism about black women writers has, until now, focused primarily on establishing the existence of these writers and defining the contexts within which they may be appreciated. Willis goes further by looking at the literary ramifications of particular themes that run throughout the works of major writers in this tradition—her most pivotal one being the movement from the past to the future, from girlhood to womanhood. Her approach is different from those of previous works in that she focuses strongly on these writers’ literary modes—narrative, metaphor, etc.—and demonstrates how these modes are themselves essential aspects of their ideas as well as their process. Willis establishes that the novelists she treats are not only historians who document the problems of capitalist industrial society but also visionaries who imagine for their characters alternative modes of work, community, and economy, toward which readers may look as they approach the future.

Specifying: Black Women Writing the American Experience (Wisconsin Project on American Writers)

History & Criticism

University of Wisconsin Press

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A Primer For Daily Life (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Arts & Photography

Routledge

The interacting components of everyday life - the weekly supermarket shopping trip, fast food, children's toys - are still largely unremarked by cultural theorists. Grounded in Marxist theory, and guided by feminism, Susan Willis' study of the consumer culture broadens the scope of cultural studies to introduce the notion of daily life, with the commodity at its centre. Willis pays particular attention to the influence of commodity fetishism on social relations. Her investigation includes the taken for granted phenomena of modern culture - Barbie dolls, plastic packaging, banana sticker logos and the aerobic workout. "A Primer For Daily Life" demonstrates that the trivial is crucial for our understanding of capitalist culture, and argues for the necessary development of a critical perspective on daily life. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of cultural studies and women's studies.

A Primer for Daily Life (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Business & Money

Economics

Between 1978 and 1985 the BBC televised the entire Shakespeare canon of thirty-seven plays, a remarkable technical and dramatic accomplishment. Susan Willis, an American scholar in Shakespeare studies and performance, observed the making of a number of these television plays. Here she presents not only a full-scale history and analysis of the BBC series but an unprecedented eyewitness account of the productions, from planning and rehearsal to taping and editing. Willis shows how the technical elements of television distinguish these productions from stage and film, and she explains how differences in transmission, tastes, educational efforts, and critical responses made the productions a different experience on each side of the Atlantic. She assesses the diversity of styles used by such directors as Jonathan Miller, Elijah Moshinsky, and Jane Howell, for after the early filmic bias toward the productions, directors experimented with unit or stylized sets, Renaissance space and lighting effects, and varieties of scenic realism as methods of embodying Shakespeare's plays for television. The BBC Shakespeare Plays will give readers an accurate sense of television production, take Shakespeare buffs behind the scenes, and serve as an interpretive guide for teachers, thousands of whom have found the BBC productions to be vital classroom adjuncts in teaching Shakespeare.

The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon

Dramas & Plays

The University of North Carolina Press

Between 1978 and 1985 the BBC televised the entire Shakespeare canon of thirty-seven plays, a remarkable technical and dramatic accomplishment. Susan Willis, an American scholar in Shakespeare studies and performance, observed the making of a number of these television plays. Here she presents not only a full-scale history and analysis of the BBC series but an unprecedented eyewitness account of the productions, from planning and rehearsal to taping and editing. Willis shows how the technical elements of television distinguish these productions from stage and film, and she explains how differences in transmission, tastes, educational efforts, and critical responses made the productions a different experience on each side of the Atlantic. She assesses the diversity of styles used by such directors as Jonathan Miller, Elijah Moshinsky, and Jane Howell, for after the early filmic bias toward the productions, directors experimented with unit or stylized sets, Renaissance space and lighting effects, and varieties of scenic realism as methods of embodying Shakespeare's plays for television. The BBC Shakespeare Plays will give readers an accurate sense of television production, take Shakespeare buffs behind the scenes, and serve as an interpretive guide for teachers, thousands of whom have found the BBC productions to be vital classroom adjuncts in teaching Shakespeare.

A Primer for Daily Life

His Wife's Secret: WHY IS SHE PUNISHING ME?

Genre Fiction

Independently published

The Curious Casefiles: A Collection of Six Short Stories

Short Stories & Anthologies

Northodox Press

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Books by Willis, Susan