The Coupling Convention: Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction

Spanning the period 1853 to 1948, this study explores the nascence of literary activity among American black women and investigates the cultural climate which led some of the most prominent to use the marriage convention as a means of exploring wider questions of human social relations, sexuality and female subjectivity. The author attempts to go beyond the period study to offer a new paradigm for reading American black women's fiction.