Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era is available for pre-order from Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/Revisiting-the-Elegy-in-the-Black-Lives-Matter-Era/Austin-Maner-Rutter-scott/p/book/9780367321581

Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era ( edited by Tiffany Austin, Emily Ruth Rutter, Sequoia Maner, and darlene anita scott) examines the elegiac tradition within African diasporic literature. We focus especially on the varied ways in which contemporary poetry and literary criticism recast the traditional conventions of the elegy in order to grapple with Black Lives Matter themes. What kinds of elegiac responses are most appropriate to police killings, the surveillance of black communities, and the slow violence of socioeconomic disparities, among other structural forms of racism? In what ways does the elegiac mode facilitate healing, helping us to cope with, meditate on, and work to build healthy, sustainable futures informed by this systemic pattern of loss? How can we productively interweave theoretical and deeply personal accounts to encourage discussions about art and activism that transgress disciplinary boundaries? Ultimately, what role does elegiac writing play in both political movements for and personal commitments to black lives? These are the pressing questions that this book’s critics and poets centralize.

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