Each chapter tracks a specific animal-the rat, the cock, the mule, the dog, the shark-in the works of Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Jesmyn Ward, and Robert Hayden. In Being Property Once Myself, prizewinning poet Joshua Bennett shows that Blackness has long acted as the caesura between human and nonhuman and delves into the literary imagination and ethical concerns that have emerged from this experience. “Tremendously illuminating…Bennett’s refreshing and field-defining approach shows how both classic and contemporary African American authors undo long-held assumptions of the animal–human divide.”-Salamishah Tillet, author of Sites of Slaveryįor much of American history, Black people have been conceived and legally defined as nonpersons, a subgenre of the human.
“A gripping work…Bennett’s lyrical lilt in his sharp analyses makes for a thorough yet accessible read.”- LSE Review of Books “An intense and illuminating reevaluation of black literature and Western thought.”-Ron Charles, Washington Post
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