Difficulty: Hard
Average Score: 40%
In the 1920s, narrowing views about what counted as literature, combined with younger Black writers' self-presentation as trailblazers, contributed to the perception of African American literature as an emerging phenomenon: one reviewer even assumed that the 1929 reprint of Charles W. Chesnutt's 1899 The Conjure Woman was a new work. Against such misreadings, librarian Dorothy Porter began expanding the enumeration of early African American texts. To do so, she reframed authorship to include collectively written documents, like the African Union Church's hymnbook, and made date, rather than exemplary form, her organizing principle. Porter's bibliography shifted scholars' focus from singular geniuses to the philosophical terms that animated diverse Black-authored texts in particular eras, thus laying foundations for the later field of African American literary studies.

Which of the following can be inferred about the 'organizing principle'?

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