Critical Voicings of Black Liberation


Book Description

The contributions to Critical Voices of Black Liberation in the Americas originated from the 1999 CAAR Conference in Munster and from conferences held in the US in 2000 and 2001. More than half of the eleven essays consider black performances on stage, in sound, and on film; the remaining essays explore slavery, African American literature, and nineteenth-century black educators. These exciting essays creatively examine artistic and/or political articulation of black liberation as the construction of a new critical and signifyin(g) voice. This liberated and critical voice asserts itself as much as a communal expression of black subjectivities as it is an articulation of the black self.




Spirituality as Ideology in Black Women's Film and Literature


Book Description

Given the ways in which spirituality functions in the work of such Black women writers and filmmakers as Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Maya Angelou, Julie Dash, and Euzhan Palcy, Judylyn Ryan proposes in this challenging new study that what these women embrace in their narrative construction and characterization is the role and responsibility of the priestess, bearing and distributing life-force to sustain the community of people who read and view their work. Central to these women's vision of transformation is what Ryan calls a paradigm of growth and an ethos of interconnectedness, which provide interpretive models for examining and teaching a broad range of artistic, cultural, and social texts. The focus on theology provides a new way of viewing the connections among New World African diaspora religious traditions, challenging the widespread and reductive assumption that Afro-Christianity shares no philosophical commonalities with Santeria, Candomble ...




Peripheral Centres, Central Peripheries


Book Description

Prominent scholars in literary and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, media studies, theatre production, and translation challenge the centre-periphery dichotomy used as a paradigm for relations between colonizers and their erstwhile subjects in this collection of critical interventions. Focussing on India and its diaspora(s) in western industrialized nations and former British colonies, this volume engages with topics of centrality and/or peripherality, particularly in the context of Anglophone Indian writing; the Indian languages; Indian film as art and popular culture; cross-cultural Shakespeare; diasporic pedagogy; and transcultural identity.




New Framings on Anti-Racism and Resistance


Book Description

This collection of essays generates important enquiries into the teaching and practice of anti-racism education, by way of working through conversations, contestations, and emotions as presented by a diverse group of strong women committed to social justice work in their own right. Throughout the collection, contemporary educational issues are situated within personal-political, historical and philosophical conversations, which work to broach the challenges and possibilities for students, educators, staff, administrators, policy makers, and community members who engage in critical anti-racism education. This work diverges from the existing scholarship by way of bringing new insights to the theoretical possibilities of resistance and futurity as voiced through pedagogues, practitioners and scholars in anti-racism. In this book the authors speak to the importance of anti-racism discursivity in a time when even those who desire to engage this framework struggle to be heard; in a time when there are anti-racism policies in institutions, yet to speak anti-racism philosophy remains dangerous; and in a time when, to speak race and anti-racism, is considered to be stirring up trouble in the face of post-racial discourses.




Crossing Boundaries


Book Description

Upon walking U.S. inner-city streets sooner or later you come upon groups of black kids wearing prison-style outfits; there is a boom box, and rap music. And inevitably you will hear the N-word. Upon entering a district housing migrants in any European city you will encounter almost identical scenes - youngsters dressed in prison style, the boom box, rap. Only most of the kids are of a "white" or olive complexion. They call themselves "Black albinos", "Wiggers" or "white N______."




Blackness and Sexualities


Book Description

With contributions from leading scholars from various disciplines, this title offers analyses and critiques that span three continents and looks at topics such as the secret marketing of black female pornography to white American men and the eroticization of colonial legacies in contemporary German media.




The Fragmentation of the Proper Name and the Crisis of Degree


Book Description

This book is a rich interpretation of a rich text, providing a twenty-first century reading of a timeless masterpiece, and, in so doing, it points to the relationship of death and desire as a playing both with body and language. The book confronts readers with the ineluctable patterns which language and time inscribe within the open/closed Shakespearean space: Degree, division, and diversity as the focal points. Emphasis upon the corporeality of the human body links this study's textual interpretation with the corpus of the literary canon, itself seen as a body divided by performance and differed by reading. It prevails over the damaging engagement with the deconstructed text and dominates the conflictual tendencies of the reconstructed drama.




Female Subjectivity in African-American Women's Poetry


Book Description

This book is aimed at constructing the Black female subjectivity of African-American women through the works of chosen poets: Marilyn Nelson, Rita Dove, Elizabeth Alexander, and Patricia Smith. The study delves into the intricacies of African-American women’s issues such as objectification, rape, motherhood, and racism. This work is unique, as it takes up the study of African-American women’s poetry and studies different creative expressions and artistic genres in their struggle for identity. It illuminates Black female aesthetics, and the liberation of self, thus, celebrating their blackness. By examining historical and contemporary issues, the book invites the readers to re-counter the dominance of the established White Order and stimulates the question of the agency of Black women. This book debunks the perceptions and offers a genuine contribution to the discourse on African-American women’s lives. It goes beyond the customary reflections on women’s experiences and addresses the poignant odyssey of ‘women of color’, marking a shift to ‘politics of survival’.




A Study Guide for Rita Dove's "Darker Face of the Earth, The"


Book Description

A Study Guide for Rita Dove's "Darker Face of the Earth, The", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.




A History of the African American Novel


Book Description

A History of the African American Novel offers an in-depth overview of the development of the novel and its major genres. In the first part of this book, Valerie Babb examines the evolution of the novel from the 1850s to the present, showing how the concept of black identity has transformed along with the art form. The second part of this History explores the prominent genres of African American novels, such as neoslave narratives, detective fiction, and speculative fiction, and considers how each one reflects changing understandings of blackness. This book builds on other literary histories by including early black print culture, African American graphic novels, pulp fiction, and the history of adaptation of black novels to film. By placing novels in conversation with other documents - early black newspapers and magazines, film, and authorial correspondence - A History of the African American Novel brings many voices to the table to broaden interpretations of the novel's development.