2015/12/08 by Molly Abel Travis · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Media Influence and Health #Gothic Literature and Media Analysis #Child Development and Digital Technology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0021875815001875
openalex publication_date 2015/12/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Anna Hartnell's “When Cars Become Churches” begins by establishing a helpful context for understanding and fully appreciating the most recent gift to readers from Jesmyn Ward, her 2013 memoir titled Men We Reaped . In the wake of the tragedies of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, John Crawford III, and Eric Gordon, Ward's memoir is a critically important addition to our understanding of the fragility of the lives of young black men. These are lives that matter deeply to Ward and to the community of DeLisle, Mississippi – and because of Ward's fearless, honest, and emotionally searing story, they are lives that matter to her readers. She realizes one of the great achievements of literature: the transformation of the reader who looks at the other from a distance into a reader who sees with the other. As such, her work – especially Salvage the Bones and Men We Reaped – helps to enhance affective and cognitive understanding of others and cultivate moral imagination.