Edwin David Aponte
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195167979
- eISBN:
- 9780199784981
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019516797X.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter explores some pedagogical challenges, responses to, and strategies for the inclusion of African and African American cultural perspectives into the required core curriculum courses at a ...
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This chapter explores some pedagogical challenges, responses to, and strategies for the inclusion of African and African American cultural perspectives into the required core curriculum courses at a graduate theological seminary. This chapter represents the author's longstanding personal interest in African and African American religions and cultures — an interest that was deepened through participation in the workshop “Mining the Motherlode of African American Religious Life”. This personal commitment is used to develop seminary courses that draw on African American religious life. In the teaching context, part of the challenge of rethinking the core curriculum lies in the particular nature of theological education.Less
This chapter explores some pedagogical challenges, responses to, and strategies for the inclusion of African and African American cultural perspectives into the required core curriculum courses at a graduate theological seminary. This chapter represents the author's longstanding personal interest in African and African American religions and cultures — an interest that was deepened through participation in the workshop “Mining the Motherlode of African American Religious Life”. This personal commitment is used to develop seminary courses that draw on African American religious life. In the teaching context, part of the challenge of rethinking the core curriculum lies in the particular nature of theological education.
Daniel Hack
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691196930
- eISBN:
- 9781400883745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691196930.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This introductory chapter demonstrates how nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century African American literature and print culture used Victorian literature to conduct acts of “African ...
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This introductory chapter demonstrates how nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century African American literature and print culture used Victorian literature to conduct acts of “African Americanization.” Here, close engagement with Victorian literature represented no mere capitulation to existing constraints, but instead constituted a deliberate political strategy and means of artistic expression. The chapter shows that this practice did not impede or undercut the development of a distinctive African American literary culture and tradition, but on the contrary contributed directly to its development. It did so through the very repetition of African Americanizing engagements, repetition that grew increasingly self-conscious and self-referential, as writers and editors built on, responded to, and positioned themselves in relation to prior instances. Victorian literature's role as an important archive for the production of African American literature and print culture, the chapter also argues, makes African American literature and print culture an important archive for the study of Victorian literature.Less
This introductory chapter demonstrates how nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century African American literature and print culture used Victorian literature to conduct acts of “African Americanization.” Here, close engagement with Victorian literature represented no mere capitulation to existing constraints, but instead constituted a deliberate political strategy and means of artistic expression. The chapter shows that this practice did not impede or undercut the development of a distinctive African American literary culture and tradition, but on the contrary contributed directly to its development. It did so through the very repetition of African Americanizing engagements, repetition that grew increasingly self-conscious and self-referential, as writers and editors built on, responded to, and positioned themselves in relation to prior instances. Victorian literature's role as an important archive for the production of African American literature and print culture, the chapter also argues, makes African American literature and print culture an important archive for the study of Victorian literature.
Crystal S. Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617037559
- eISBN:
- 9781621039327
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617037559.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter uses Lee’s film The Chinese Connection (1972) to explore the theme of ethnic imperialism involving Japanese and African American cultures in Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring and the ...
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This chapter uses Lee’s film The Chinese Connection (1972) to explore the theme of ethnic imperialism involving Japanese and African American cultures in Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring and the Japanese anime series Samurai Champloo. Set against the backdrop of Shanghai in 1908, tensions resulting from Japanese encroachment on Chinese sovereignty and resources drive the action. In this way, The Chinese Connection prefigures the theme of ethnic imperialism, with the Japanese as antagonists who represent a colonizing power bent on erasing Chinese culture and imposing Japanese culture upon the citizens.Less
This chapter uses Lee’s film The Chinese Connection (1972) to explore the theme of ethnic imperialism involving Japanese and African American cultures in Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring and the Japanese anime series Samurai Champloo. Set against the backdrop of Shanghai in 1908, tensions resulting from Japanese encroachment on Chinese sovereignty and resources drive the action. In this way, The Chinese Connection prefigures the theme of ethnic imperialism, with the Japanese as antagonists who represent a colonizing power bent on erasing Chinese culture and imposing Japanese culture upon the citizens.
Marlene L. Daut
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381847
- eISBN:
- 9781781382394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381847.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter is all about ‘Theresa; a Haytien Tale’ (1828), a short story that was serialized and published anonymously in the first African American newspaper Freedom’s Journal, and is now ...
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This chapter is all about ‘Theresa; a Haytien Tale’ (1828), a short story that was serialized and published anonymously in the first African American newspaper Freedom’s Journal, and is now considered to be the first African American short story. The author argues that this brief text provides an even more redemptive role for women of color. ‘Theresa’ imagines women as central to the liberation of the colony through their unfailing and unquestioning allegiance to the revolutionary cause. ‘Theresa’ is therefore not buttressed by pseudoscientific claims of the innate savagery or hyper-sexuality of “black” women, but instead unequivocally celebrates their ability to contribute to slave rebellions, imagining a hitherto denied active role for women of color in the events of the Haitian Revolution.Less
This chapter is all about ‘Theresa; a Haytien Tale’ (1828), a short story that was serialized and published anonymously in the first African American newspaper Freedom’s Journal, and is now considered to be the first African American short story. The author argues that this brief text provides an even more redemptive role for women of color. ‘Theresa’ imagines women as central to the liberation of the colony through their unfailing and unquestioning allegiance to the revolutionary cause. ‘Theresa’ is therefore not buttressed by pseudoscientific claims of the innate savagery or hyper-sexuality of “black” women, but instead unequivocally celebrates their ability to contribute to slave rebellions, imagining a hitherto denied active role for women of color in the events of the Haitian Revolution.
Nadia Nurhussein
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691190969
- eISBN:
- 9780691194134
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691190969.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This is the first book to explore how African American writing and art engaged with visions of Ethiopia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the only African nation, with the ...
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This is the first book to explore how African American writing and art engaged with visions of Ethiopia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the only African nation, with the exception of Liberia, to remain independent during the colonization of the continent, Ethiopia has long held significance for and captivated the imaginations of African Americans. The book delves into nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American artistic and journalistic depictions of Ethiopia, illuminating the increasing tensions and ironies behind cultural celebrations of an African country asserting itself as an imperial power. It navigates texts by Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Pauline Hopkins, Harry Dean, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, George Schuyler, and others, alongside images and performances that show the intersection of African America with Ethiopia during historic political shifts. From a description of a notorious 1920 Star Order of Ethiopia flag-burning demonstration in Chicago to a discussion of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1935, the book illuminates the growing complications that modern Ethiopia posed for American writers and activists. American media coverage of the African nation exposed a clear contrast between the Pan-African ideal and the modern reality of Ethiopia as an antidemocratic imperialist state: Did Ethiopia represent the black nation of the future, or one of an inert and static past? Revising current understandings of black transnationalism, the book presents a well-rounded exploration of an era when Ethiopia's presence in African American culture was at its height.Less
This is the first book to explore how African American writing and art engaged with visions of Ethiopia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the only African nation, with the exception of Liberia, to remain independent during the colonization of the continent, Ethiopia has long held significance for and captivated the imaginations of African Americans. The book delves into nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American artistic and journalistic depictions of Ethiopia, illuminating the increasing tensions and ironies behind cultural celebrations of an African country asserting itself as an imperial power. It navigates texts by Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Pauline Hopkins, Harry Dean, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, George Schuyler, and others, alongside images and performances that show the intersection of African America with Ethiopia during historic political shifts. From a description of a notorious 1920 Star Order of Ethiopia flag-burning demonstration in Chicago to a discussion of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1935, the book illuminates the growing complications that modern Ethiopia posed for American writers and activists. American media coverage of the African nation exposed a clear contrast between the Pan-African ideal and the modern reality of Ethiopia as an antidemocratic imperialist state: Did Ethiopia represent the black nation of the future, or one of an inert and static past? Revising current understandings of black transnationalism, the book presents a well-rounded exploration of an era when Ethiopia's presence in African American culture was at its height.
Travis A. Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520270442
- eISBN:
- 9780520951921
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520270442.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter examines some of the meanings that emerge from jazz performance based on statements by musicians regarding their approaches to musical events and their interpretation and evaluation. ...
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This chapter examines some of the meanings that emerge from jazz performance based on statements by musicians regarding their approaches to musical events and their interpretation and evaluation. Through identification of their common concerns, it proposes that they have developed and operate within the parameters of a set of normative and evaluative criteria called a “blues aesthetic.” In defining that aesthetic, the chapter explores its foundations in African American culture and other, parallel and competing, discourses and aesthetic formations.Less
This chapter examines some of the meanings that emerge from jazz performance based on statements by musicians regarding their approaches to musical events and their interpretation and evaluation. Through identification of their common concerns, it proposes that they have developed and operate within the parameters of a set of normative and evaluative criteria called a “blues aesthetic.” In defining that aesthetic, the chapter explores its foundations in African American culture and other, parallel and competing, discourses and aesthetic formations.
Donald H. Matthews
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199963997
- eISBN:
- 9780190258412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199963997.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter examines the theology of the African American spirituals from a postmodern perspective. It considers how racism in the United States has caused African American religious interpretation ...
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This chapter examines the theology of the African American spirituals from a postmodern perspective. It considers how racism in the United States has caused African American religious interpretation to undergo a dialectical process, resulting in a distorted perception of African Americans by African American theologians and in a cultural-structural dialectic nature of African American religion. It also discusses the implicit meanings in black theology as found in the spirituals by relating them to questions of methodology in the interpretation of African American religion and culture.Less
This chapter examines the theology of the African American spirituals from a postmodern perspective. It considers how racism in the United States has caused African American religious interpretation to undergo a dialectical process, resulting in a distorted perception of African Americans by African American theologians and in a cultural-structural dialectic nature of African American religion. It also discusses the implicit meanings in black theology as found in the spirituals by relating them to questions of methodology in the interpretation of African American religion and culture.
Donald H. Matthews
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199963997
- eISBN:
- 9780190258412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199963997.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter examines black literary criticism in relation to narrative hermeneutics. It first looks at the factors that contributed to the rise of black literary criticism, including African ...
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This chapter examines black literary criticism in relation to narrative hermeneutics. It first looks at the factors that contributed to the rise of black literary criticism, including African American culture and the historical forces that drove the development of black theology - namely, the civil rights and black power movements. It then considers Stephen Henderson's suggestion that the interpretive process for black literary criticism proceeds according to the requirements of three critical categories: the themes present in black literature; structural analysis as an aspect of black narration; and saturation, or the communication of blackness in a given situation and a sense of fidelity to the observed and intuited truth of the black experience. It also explores the difficulties in the development of a black narrative theory by focusing on the ideas of Houston Baker Jr. and Henry Louis Gates Jr. More specifically, it analyzes Baker's “vernacular” theory of black literary criticism and his interpretation of the slave narratives in comparison with Gates's hermeneutic of African American literature and his recognition of the importance of religion in the interpretation of African American culture.Less
This chapter examines black literary criticism in relation to narrative hermeneutics. It first looks at the factors that contributed to the rise of black literary criticism, including African American culture and the historical forces that drove the development of black theology - namely, the civil rights and black power movements. It then considers Stephen Henderson's suggestion that the interpretive process for black literary criticism proceeds according to the requirements of three critical categories: the themes present in black literature; structural analysis as an aspect of black narration; and saturation, or the communication of blackness in a given situation and a sense of fidelity to the observed and intuited truth of the black experience. It also explores the difficulties in the development of a black narrative theory by focusing on the ideas of Houston Baker Jr. and Henry Louis Gates Jr. More specifically, it analyzes Baker's “vernacular” theory of black literary criticism and his interpretation of the slave narratives in comparison with Gates's hermeneutic of African American literature and his recognition of the importance of religion in the interpretation of African American culture.
Garrett Albert Duncan
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098114
- eISBN:
- 9789882206830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098114.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter provides a critical account of African American language research discourse and cultural imperialism in the U.S. It analyzes the discourses that underlie research on African American ...
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This chapter provides a critical account of African American language research discourse and cultural imperialism in the U.S. It analyzes the discourses that underlie research on African American language in the U.S. that contribute to its contested meanings in the public sphere. It also highlights the 1996 resolution of the Oakland Unified School District in California that affirmed the role of African American culture and language in the education of Afro-American students.Less
This chapter provides a critical account of African American language research discourse and cultural imperialism in the U.S. It analyzes the discourses that underlie research on African American language in the U.S. that contribute to its contested meanings in the public sphere. It also highlights the 1996 resolution of the Oakland Unified School District in California that affirmed the role of African American culture and language in the education of Afro-American students.
Black Hawk Hancock
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226043074
- eISBN:
- 9780226043241
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226043241.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter examines the history of the Lindy Hop and what its revival says about the ongoing story of our struggles with “American” cultural identity. It relates the Lindy Hop scene to the social ...
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This chapter examines the history of the Lindy Hop and what its revival says about the ongoing story of our struggles with “American” cultural identity. It relates the Lindy Hop scene to the social dance world of Steppin' in order to understand the Lindy Hop in relation to race, identity, and contemporary American society. It discusses the need to shift the study of race and ethnicity back onto whiteness and the ways in which the privileges of whiteness are institutionalized and naturalized; Ralph Ellison's thoughts on African American culture; and the carnal sociology approach. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This chapter examines the history of the Lindy Hop and what its revival says about the ongoing story of our struggles with “American” cultural identity. It relates the Lindy Hop scene to the social dance world of Steppin' in order to understand the Lindy Hop in relation to race, identity, and contemporary American society. It discusses the need to shift the study of race and ethnicity back onto whiteness and the ways in which the privileges of whiteness are institutionalized and naturalized; Ralph Ellison's thoughts on African American culture; and the carnal sociology approach. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Black Hawk Hancock
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226043074
- eISBN:
- 9780226043241
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226043241.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter recounts the author's engagement with the Steppin' scene in Chicago and explores how cultural practice enables the contestation and transgression of racial categories. This approach ...
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This chapter recounts the author's engagement with the Steppin' scene in Chicago and explores how cultural practice enables the contestation and transgression of racial categories. This approach presents an alternative model for explaining racial identity, grounded in the competencies and embodied knowledge that one enacts in practice, which opens up new antiessentialist possibilities for theorizing race and an antiracist politics based in cultural labor. In doing so, the chapter highlights the nuances of subcultures within the larger African American community by showing the internal differences that exemplify the complexity of discussing a singular African American community in relation to any particular cultural form.Less
This chapter recounts the author's engagement with the Steppin' scene in Chicago and explores how cultural practice enables the contestation and transgression of racial categories. This approach presents an alternative model for explaining racial identity, grounded in the competencies and embodied knowledge that one enacts in practice, which opens up new antiessentialist possibilities for theorizing race and an antiracist politics based in cultural labor. In doing so, the chapter highlights the nuances of subcultures within the larger African American community by showing the internal differences that exemplify the complexity of discussing a singular African American community in relation to any particular cultural form.
Daniel Hack
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691196930
- eISBN:
- 9781400883745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691196930.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This concluding chapter explores African American literature and print culture in the following century. Here, the prestige and popularity of most Victorian literature—and of Victorian literature as ...
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This concluding chapter explores African American literature and print culture in the following century. Here, the prestige and popularity of most Victorian literature—and of Victorian literature as a category—diminished rapidly in the first half of the twentieth century, thanks in good part to the rise of modernism. Moreover, when twentieth-century African American writers looked abroad for cultures that seemed freer from racial prejudice or even the pressures of racialized identity than the United States, their gaze shifted from Britain elsewhere. France in particular took on this role, while also becoming the privileged site of black internationalism, with Paris viewed as “a special space for black transnational interaction, exchange, and dialogue.” Beginning with the Harlem Renaissance, notions of racial authenticity also reinforced this turn away from Victorian literature, not only for its whiteness but also for its association with gentility and middle-class values. Indeed, these same attitudes have shaped the dominant critical reception of the Victorian presence in African American literature and print culture until quite recently.Less
This concluding chapter explores African American literature and print culture in the following century. Here, the prestige and popularity of most Victorian literature—and of Victorian literature as a category—diminished rapidly in the first half of the twentieth century, thanks in good part to the rise of modernism. Moreover, when twentieth-century African American writers looked abroad for cultures that seemed freer from racial prejudice or even the pressures of racialized identity than the United States, their gaze shifted from Britain elsewhere. France in particular took on this role, while also becoming the privileged site of black internationalism, with Paris viewed as “a special space for black transnational interaction, exchange, and dialogue.” Beginning with the Harlem Renaissance, notions of racial authenticity also reinforced this turn away from Victorian literature, not only for its whiteness but also for its association with gentility and middle-class values. Indeed, these same attitudes have shaped the dominant critical reception of the Victorian presence in African American literature and print culture until quite recently.
Christopher Tomlins
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691198668
- eISBN:
- 9780691199870
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691198668.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This introductory chapter considers what called William Styron's fictive realities into being, and how they were crafted. Styron had written The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), which represented ...
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This introductory chapter considers what called William Styron's fictive realities into being, and how they were crafted. Styron had written The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), which represented itself as the autobiographical narrative of the African American slave-turned-rebel leader, Nat Turner. The chapter asks what made his work a “meditation on history”—and why it failed. It also takes a look at whether it might be possible to redeem Nat Turner from endless deferral—the effect of multiple attempts to “understand” him as a figment of text without listening to (or for) him as a person. African American popular culture has tried, with some success, to retrieve Nat Turner, to recognize and assimilate him to itself, without deferral. However, this chapter considers whether or not he will ever be able to achieve a historical presence of his own that is other than past, and how.Less
This introductory chapter considers what called William Styron's fictive realities into being, and how they were crafted. Styron had written The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), which represented itself as the autobiographical narrative of the African American slave-turned-rebel leader, Nat Turner. The chapter asks what made his work a “meditation on history”—and why it failed. It also takes a look at whether it might be possible to redeem Nat Turner from endless deferral—the effect of multiple attempts to “understand” him as a figment of text without listening to (or for) him as a person. African American popular culture has tried, with some success, to retrieve Nat Turner, to recognize and assimilate him to itself, without deferral. However, this chapter considers whether or not he will ever be able to achieve a historical presence of his own that is other than past, and how.
Donal Harris
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231177726
- eISBN:
- 9780231541343
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231177726.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
W.E.B. Du Bois’ and Jessie Fauset’s interest in new printing technologies – multigraphs, linotypes, and halftone reproduction – are crucial for understanding the political and aesthetic missions of ...
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W.E.B. Du Bois’ and Jessie Fauset’s interest in new printing technologies – multigraphs, linotypes, and halftone reproduction – are crucial for understanding the political and aesthetic missions of The Crisis. They envision the magazine as both constituting and creating an archive of a national African American intellectual community; at the same time Du Bois' essays, Fauset's fiction, and Frank Walt's illustrations thematize the technological and political roadblocks for establishing a recognizably black print culture in the 1910s and 1920s.Less
W.E.B. Du Bois’ and Jessie Fauset’s interest in new printing technologies – multigraphs, linotypes, and halftone reproduction – are crucial for understanding the political and aesthetic missions of The Crisis. They envision the magazine as both constituting and creating an archive of a national African American intellectual community; at the same time Du Bois' essays, Fauset's fiction, and Frank Walt's illustrations thematize the technological and political roadblocks for establishing a recognizably black print culture in the 1910s and 1920s.
Mark P. Leone
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520244504
- eISBN:
- 9780520931893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520244504.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter shows what African American culture in Annapolis teaches us about the conditions of the Americans, and attempts to explain how the African American culture sheds light on slavery, ...
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This chapter shows what African American culture in Annapolis teaches us about the conditions of the Americans, and attempts to explain how the African American culture sheds light on slavery, racism, work, equality, and the level to which African Americans were within or lived beyond the ideology of individualism. It shows the challenges posed by archaeology to capitalism, and ends with a discussion of the problem of the individual who acts.Less
This chapter shows what African American culture in Annapolis teaches us about the conditions of the Americans, and attempts to explain how the African American culture sheds light on slavery, racism, work, equality, and the level to which African Americans were within or lived beyond the ideology of individualism. It shows the challenges posed by archaeology to capitalism, and ends with a discussion of the problem of the individual who acts.
Stephanie Brown
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604739732
- eISBN:
- 9781604739749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604739732.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter aims to recreate the conditions of the production of the African American novel between 1945 and 1950. In doing so, it is necessary to not only recover the lost voices of the time but ...
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This chapter aims to recreate the conditions of the production of the African American novel between 1945 and 1950. In doing so, it is necessary to not only recover the lost voices of the time but pry open a space in the critical models available for theorizing postwar African American culture. The end of the Cold War provided cultural historians with both a sense of closure for a long-standing global narrative and a rich source of archival materials from the former Soviet Union and its satellites. The focus has often been on the work of white writers, while black musicians and visual artists have stood in for the cultural production of African Americans more generally. Ralph Ellison provides the single exception.Less
This chapter aims to recreate the conditions of the production of the African American novel between 1945 and 1950. In doing so, it is necessary to not only recover the lost voices of the time but pry open a space in the critical models available for theorizing postwar African American culture. The end of the Cold War provided cultural historians with both a sense of closure for a long-standing global narrative and a rich source of archival materials from the former Soviet Union and its satellites. The focus has often been on the work of white writers, while black musicians and visual artists have stood in for the cultural production of African Americans more generally. Ralph Ellison provides the single exception.
Reva Marin
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781496829979
- eISBN:
- 9781496830029
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496829979.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter examines the autobiographies of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Mezz Mezzrow, and Max Kaminsky, focusing on their multifaceted identities as second-generation Jewish Americans whose lives and ...
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This chapter examines the autobiographies of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Mezz Mezzrow, and Max Kaminsky, focusing on their multifaceted identities as second-generation Jewish Americans whose lives and careers brought them into close contact with African American music and society. While these autobiographers recount childhoods in which their identities as ethnic Jews leave them at a distance—both geographically and psychologically—from Protestant white America, their identities prove to be far from fixed; over time their focus on themselves as ethnic outsiders is complimented—or even replaced—by a more general self-identification as “white” and a longing to be Black, or at least to experience immersion in African American culture. This process is facilitated by their experiences of city life and their attraction to jazz music and nightlife—all of which exposes them to the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of American life.Less
This chapter examines the autobiographies of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Mezz Mezzrow, and Max Kaminsky, focusing on their multifaceted identities as second-generation Jewish Americans whose lives and careers brought them into close contact with African American music and society. While these autobiographers recount childhoods in which their identities as ethnic Jews leave them at a distance—both geographically and psychologically—from Protestant white America, their identities prove to be far from fixed; over time their focus on themselves as ethnic outsiders is complimented—or even replaced—by a more general self-identification as “white” and a longing to be Black, or at least to experience immersion in African American culture. This process is facilitated by their experiences of city life and their attraction to jazz music and nightlife—all of which exposes them to the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of American life.
Thomas F. DeFrantz
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195301717
- eISBN:
- 9780199850648
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195301717.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This chapter examines Revelations, the first major choreographic masterpiece of Alvin Ailey. When Ailey choreographed this dance in 1960 it was intended to be the second part of an evening-length ...
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This chapter examines Revelations, the first major choreographic masterpiece of Alvin Ailey. When Ailey choreographed this dance in 1960 it was intended to be the second part of an evening-length survey of African American music that would show the growth and reach of black culture. He chose the spirituals, or sorrow songs, for this dance because it was designed to suggest a chronological spectrum of black religious music that would map out rural southern spirituality onto the dance concert stage.Less
This chapter examines Revelations, the first major choreographic masterpiece of Alvin Ailey. When Ailey choreographed this dance in 1960 it was intended to be the second part of an evening-length survey of African American music that would show the growth and reach of black culture. He chose the spirituals, or sorrow songs, for this dance because it was designed to suggest a chronological spectrum of black religious music that would map out rural southern spirituality onto the dance concert stage.
Jade Broughton Adams
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474424684
- eISBN:
- 9781474459662
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474424684.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter discusses Fitzgerald’s conflicted relationship with popular culture in the interwar period from 1918 until his death in 1940.
Magazines like the Saturday Evening Post were lucrative, and ...
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This chapter discusses Fitzgerald’s conflicted relationship with popular culture in the interwar period from 1918 until his death in 1940.
Magazines like the Saturday Evening Post were lucrative, and helped Fitzgerald to establish his early flapper ‘brand’, but he was often wary of being identified with these commercial magazines. Fitzgerald carefully uses references to popular culture in order to disrupt our expectations of his lyrical style as well as the established magazine short story conventions of the 1920s and 1930s. By using such experimental techniques whilst also courting a mass audience, Fitzgerald can be seen pursuing literary acclaim as well as financial security: joint aims that he harboured throughout his career.
This chapter shows how Fitzgerald uses parody to shed new light on popular cultural forms of the period, as well as to interrogate the concept of leisure in a period in which there was a great upheaval of cultural values. He identifies with black entertainers and African American culture as a means of theorizing his own relationship with the entertainment industry. His use of parody enables him to navigate fluidly between popular and ‘high’ culture, and to undermine commercial magazine formulae, whilst establishing his own brand of literary modernism.Less
This chapter discusses Fitzgerald’s conflicted relationship with popular culture in the interwar period from 1918 until his death in 1940.
Magazines like the Saturday Evening Post were lucrative, and helped Fitzgerald to establish his early flapper ‘brand’, but he was often wary of being identified with these commercial magazines. Fitzgerald carefully uses references to popular culture in order to disrupt our expectations of his lyrical style as well as the established magazine short story conventions of the 1920s and 1930s. By using such experimental techniques whilst also courting a mass audience, Fitzgerald can be seen pursuing literary acclaim as well as financial security: joint aims that he harboured throughout his career.
This chapter shows how Fitzgerald uses parody to shed new light on popular cultural forms of the period, as well as to interrogate the concept of leisure in a period in which there was a great upheaval of cultural values. He identifies with black entertainers and African American culture as a means of theorizing his own relationship with the entertainment industry. His use of parody enables him to navigate fluidly between popular and ‘high’ culture, and to undermine commercial magazine formulae, whilst establishing his own brand of literary modernism.
Joel Dinerstein
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496817020
- eISBN:
- 9781496817068
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496817020.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
There has been a weekly Sunday African-American second-line parade for 150 years in New Orleans--a diffused democratic street ritual of performativity enacted through dance, music, and stylin'. The ...
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There has been a weekly Sunday African-American second-line parade for 150 years in New Orleans--a diffused democratic street ritual of performativity enacted through dance, music, and stylin'. The main action focuses on the sponsoring Social Aid and Pleasure Club, who parade between the ropes with their hired brass-band, on-stage and for public consumption. Yet the so-called second-liners rolling and dancing outside the ropes provide the peak moments of aesthetic excellence in their claiming of interstitial spaces: on the sidewalks between the street and house-lines; on church-steps, atop truck beds or along rooftops; on porches, stoops, and billboards. Drawing on a living tradition of New Orleans African-American expressive culture, individuals display creative style as both personal pleasure and social invigoration. The physical gestures and non-verbal messages of this vernacular dance are here analysed through a series of images by second-line photographer Pableaux Johnson.Less
There has been a weekly Sunday African-American second-line parade for 150 years in New Orleans--a diffused democratic street ritual of performativity enacted through dance, music, and stylin'. The main action focuses on the sponsoring Social Aid and Pleasure Club, who parade between the ropes with their hired brass-band, on-stage and for public consumption. Yet the so-called second-liners rolling and dancing outside the ropes provide the peak moments of aesthetic excellence in their claiming of interstitial spaces: on the sidewalks between the street and house-lines; on church-steps, atop truck beds or along rooftops; on porches, stoops, and billboards. Drawing on a living tradition of New Orleans African-American expressive culture, individuals display creative style as both personal pleasure and social invigoration. The physical gestures and non-verbal messages of this vernacular dance are here analysed through a series of images by second-line photographer Pableaux Johnson.
