Critical Essays on Alice Walker

IKENNA DIEKE is Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author of The Primordial Image: African, Afro-American, and Caribbean Mythopoetic Text (1993) and of several articles in scholarly journals such as African American Review and The New Review.

• Introduction: Alice Walker, Pygmalion in Reverse by Ikenna DiekeOccupational Hazard: Loss of Historical Context in Twentieth-Century Feminist Readings, and a New Reading of the Heroine's Story in Alice Walker's THE COLOR PURPLE by Dror Abend-DavidHeritage and Deracination in Walker's "Everyday Use" by David CowartAlice Walker's Womanist Magic: The Conjure Woman as Rhetor by Catherine A. ColtonWhen a Convent Seems the Only Viable Choice: Questionable Callings in Stories by Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Walker, and Louise Erdrich by Margaret D. BauerCreating Generations: The Relationship between Celie and Shug in Alice Walker's THE COLOR PURPLE by E. Ellen BarkerAlice Walker and the "Man Question" by Pia ThielmannRevolutionary Stanzas: The Civil and Human Rights Poetry of Alice Walker by Jefrey L. ColemanTHE COLOR PURPLE: An Existential Novel by Marc-A. ChristopheAlice Walker's Redemptive Art by Felipe SmithWalker's THE TEMPLE OF MY FAMILIAR: Womanist as Monistic Idealist by Ikenna DiekeAlice Walker's American Quilt: THE COLOR PURPLE and American Literary Tradition by Priscilla LederWho Touches This Touches a Woman: The Naked Self in Alice Walker by Ruth D. Weston"Nothing Can Be Sole or Whole That Has Not Been Rent": Fragmentation in the QUILT and THE COLOR PURPLE by Judy ElsleyA Matter of Focus: Men in the Margins of Alice Walker's Fiction by Erna Kelly"What She Got to Sing About?": Comedy and THE COLOR PURPLE by Priscilla L. WaltonAlice Walker: Poesy and the Earthling Psyche by Ikenna DiekeAppendix: ChronologySelected BibliographyIndex