ABOUT THIS BOOK

Iconic as a novelist and popular cultural figure, Zora Neale Hurston remains underappreciated as an anthropologist. Is it inevitable that Hurston’s literary authority should eclipse her anthropological authority? If not, what socio-cultural and institutional values and processes shape the different ways we read her work? Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall considers the polar receptions to Hurston’s two areas of achievement by examining the critical response to her work across both fields. Drawing on a wide range of readings, Freeman Marshall explores Hurston’s popular appeal as iconography, her elevation into the literary canon, her concurrent marginalization in anthropology despite her significant contributions, and her place within constructions of Black feminist literary traditions.

Perceptive and original, Ain’t I an Anthropologist is an overdue reassessment of Zora Neale Hurston’s place in American cultural and intellectual life.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall is an associate professor in the Department of English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University.

REVIEWS

"As the public, scholars, writers, and creatives continue to engage with Hurston through ongoing book releases, studies, documentaries, and festivals, Freeman Marshall’s work provides an important intervention that calls us to think about how we reconstruct and deploy Hurston as not only a talented storyteller and incisive ethnographer but also a consummate intellectual." --Another Chicago

"Freeman Marshall makes clear that Hurston’s reputation as an anthropologist has been undermined by the glamour of her rediscovery and subsequent literary 'canonization' . . . . Freeman Marshall also compellingly argues that 'Hurston’s anthropological work has not been more fully recognized within the field of anthropology in part due to the marginalization of American folklore and in, in particular, African American folklore within the discipline.' Hopefully, with this new study, Hurston’s contributions to anthropology will finally be recognized." --Southern Review of Books

"Doomed to obscurity, Zora Neale Hurston was then resurrected as a 'founding mother' of Black literature and folklore. Yet her pioneering work in African diaspora ethnography and anthropology, especially her work in Haiti, remains little-known. . . . Marshall concludes that Hurston’s refusal to be defined as 'tragically colored' formed her genius as she 'embraces . . . the right to feel and be herself, idiosyncratic and sometimes puzzling, like any member of the human race.'" --Booklist starred review

"An insightful read about how academic obscurity can pigeonhole the legacy of Black women thinkers. Hurston’s fascination, esteem, and passion to capture, preserve and return to the African diaspora their new world folk traditions used academic methods and Africana means to share our interior selves. . . . Freeman Marshall contends that 'contextualization and a commitment to interdisciplinarity remain central' to excavating Hurston. This excavation serves as a prism through which collective literary and cultural works can contribute to transformative ways of reading and understanding the hybrid Black feminist agency and legacy crafted by Zora Neale Hurston by her people for her people and humanity writ large." --Black Perspectives

"A fascinating examination into the work of Zora Neale Hurston as an anthropologist, which has been all but forgotten, especially in comparison to her work as a writer and cultural icon. " --Ms. Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: “Twice as Much Praise or Twice as Much Blame”

On Firsts, Foremothers, and “The Walker Effect”
Signifying “Texts”: The Race for Hurston
Deconstructing an Icon: Tradition and Authority
“Ain’t I an Anthropologist?”
Mules and Men: “Negro folklore [. . .] is still in the making”
The author arrives at no conclusion”? Reading Tell My Horse

Works Cited

Index