Bryan Sinche on Published by the Author: Self-Publication in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature

This discussion is with Dr. Bryan Sinche, a Professor and Chair of English at the University of Hartford. He has written more than twenty essays and reviews which appear in journals such as American Literary History, African American Review, ESQ, Legacy, and Biography and in collections published by Basic Books, Cambridge University Press, and the University of Wisconsin Press. He is also the editor of two books: The Guide for Teachers accompanying the third edition of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2014) and the first scholarly edition of Appointed: An American Novel (2019, co-edited with Eric Gardner).

In this conversation, we discuss his latest monograph, Published by the Author: Self-Publication and Nineteenth-Century African American Literature, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2024, where he discusses the hidden history of African American self-publication and offers new ways to understand the significance of publication as a creative, reformist, and remunerative project.