The “Already Implicit” Canon

Data from Anthologies of African American Literature

Co-authored with J. D. Porter and Arthur Knight.

This essay extends previous work on American literature anthologies1 to historical anthologies of African American Literature in collaboration with the William & Mary Anthologies-Canons Lab.

Using new data describing the authors and works selected for 25 comprehensive African American literature anthologies from Calverton2 to the newest Norton,3 we demonstrate how prior selection of authors and works for comprehensive African American literature anthologies predict future selections.

  1. Erik Fredner and J. D. Porter, “Counting on The Norton Anthology of American Literature,” PMLA 139, no. 1 (2024): 50–65, https://doi.org/10.1632/S0030812923001189.↩︎

  2. V. F. Calverton, ed., Anthology of American Negro Literature (The Modern library, 1929).↩︎

  3. Henry Louis Gates Jr., Valerie Smith, William L. Andrews, et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Fourth edition (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2025).↩︎