Abstract/Summary

In this essay I argue for a renewed interrogation of canonicity when we teach African American literature. I contend that talking about the canon offers an opportunity for students to both understand and question how they are taught and what they are taught and thereby enhances their learning experience. Using the example of Attica Locke’s crime fiction novel, The Cutting Season, I show how a popular literary genre, with its attention to form and freedom to ‘play’ and be entertaining, can be an effective means through which readers might understand and map the contingencies and contradictions of the prose, poetry and drama that is taught and presented as African American literature. As a crime fiction novel The Cutting Season suggests how a more creative and questioning pedagogical practice is possible within the teaching of African American fiction and forces questions about the categorical and qualitative division of literature to the surface.