The Writers of Wales Database

FERGUSON, REBECCA H.

Rebecca Ferguson is a Lecturer at the University of Wales, Lampeter. Her research and publications have covered the fields of eighteenth-century satire and the interrelations of the visual and the verbal. Following a year as a Fulbright Exchange Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (1988-89), she became particularly interested in the works of the black American novelist Toni Morrison, which sparked several articles and one full-length study. The focus of many of Rebecca’s critical works has been the historical and cultural contexts within which literary texts may be interpreted; these interests have extended also to contemporary critical theoretical frameworks, including specific areas of psychoanalysis (notably object relations theory) and aspects of feminist and poststructuralist theory. She has been widely published in journals and anthologies, including Critical Survey and The International Journal of the Humanities. Her recent book, Rewriting Black Identities: Transition and Exchange in the Novels of Toni Morrison (Peter Lang, 2007) received a Recognition Award from the Toni Morrison Society in America (2008).

Rebecca acted as Head of Department in the academic session 2006-7. She has also had experience as External Examiner for the BA programmes in English and English and Drama at Loughborough University (1991-94), as a supervisor of research degrees at UWL, and as an External Examiner for research degrees within the Universities of London, Leeds and Trondheim (Norway). Future projects will include a shorter study of Toni Morrison for the British Council series Writers and Their Work, and an investigation of the figure of Death in the poetry of Swift.

Reviews:
With respect to Th’Unbalanc’d Mind: Pope and the Rule of Passion (HarvesterWheatsheaf, 1986)

"…careful in analysis, modest in pretensions, subtle, useful and intelligent…"
David Nokes, TLS


Selected Publications:
Th’Unbalanc’d Mind: Pope and the Rule of Passion (HarvesterWheatsheaf, 1986)
Rewriting Black Identities: Transition and Exchange in the Novels of Toni Morrison (Peter Lang, 2007)

Contributed to:
Guide to The Rape of the Lock and Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot by Alexander Pope (co-writer) (Akadimias, 1986)
Pope: New Contexts (contributor) (HarvesterWheatsheaf, 1990)
Feminist Criticism and Practice (contributor) (University of Toronto Press, 1991)
Contemporary American Women Writers (contributor) (Longman Critical Readers series, 1998)
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 (contributor) (Pearson Education, 2002)



Rewriting Black Identities: Transition and Exchange in the Novels of Toni Morrison (Peter Lang, 2007)

The complexity of African-American identities is a central concern in Toni Morrison’s writing. Speaking of "the enormous layers of lives that [black Americans] live", she has commented that "If I examine those layers, I don’t come up with simple statements". Drawing on relevant areas of feminist, poststructuralist and race-related theory, this study explores aspects of that complexity, encompassing all eight of her novels to date, including Love (2003).

Opening with an exploration of The Bluest Eye (1970) in the light of psychoanalytic theory concerning the relational self, racial identity and the transitional object, it goes on to analyse Morrison’s articulation of changing aspects of black American identity, assessing among other concerns her poetic practice in relation to voice, time, space and memory, her deployment of narrative and generic forms, and her expressive use of intertextual references.

This innovative study also highlights the key stages of historical and cultural transition that feature most prominently in her novels - the fragmentation and dislocation entailed by slavery, the era of Reconstruction and its aftermath, the impact of the Great Migration and the concept of the New Negro, gender difference and conflict, the Civil Rights movement and the politics of black separatism, and the unique ethos of the all-black townships as reflected in Paradise.

To purchase this title from the publisher Peter Lang, please click on its front cover