The Black Female Body in American Literature and Art

Performing Identity

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Black, American, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies
Cover of the book The Black Female Body in American Literature and Art by Caroline Brown, Taylor and Francis
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Caroline Brown ISBN: 9781136289194
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Publication: February 28, 2013
Imprint: Routledge Language: English
Author: Caroline Brown
ISBN: 9781136289194
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication: February 28, 2013
Imprint: Routledge
Language: English

This book examines how African-American writers and visual artists interweave icon and inscription in order to re-present the black female body, traditionally rendered alien and inarticulate within Western discursive and visual systems. Brown considers how the writings of Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones, Paule Marshall, Edwidge Danticat, Jamaica Kincaid, Andrea Lee, Gloria Naylor, and Martha Southgate are bound to such contemporary, postmodern visual artists as Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Kara Walker, Betye Saar, and Faith Ringgold. While the artists and authors rely on radically different media—photos, collage, video, and assembled objects, as opposed to words and rhythm—both sets of intellectual activists insist on the primacy of the black aesthetic. Both assert artistic agency and cultural continuity in the face of the oppression, social transformation, and cultural multiplicity of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book examines how African-American performative practices mediate the tension between the ostensibly de-racialized body politic and the hyper-racialized black, female body, reimagining the cultural and political ground that guides various articulations of American national belonging. Brown shows how and why black women writers and artists matter as agents of change, how and why the form and content of their works must be recognized and reconsidered in the increasingly frenzied arena of cultural production and political debate.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This book examines how African-American writers and visual artists interweave icon and inscription in order to re-present the black female body, traditionally rendered alien and inarticulate within Western discursive and visual systems. Brown considers how the writings of Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones, Paule Marshall, Edwidge Danticat, Jamaica Kincaid, Andrea Lee, Gloria Naylor, and Martha Southgate are bound to such contemporary, postmodern visual artists as Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Kara Walker, Betye Saar, and Faith Ringgold. While the artists and authors rely on radically different media—photos, collage, video, and assembled objects, as opposed to words and rhythm—both sets of intellectual activists insist on the primacy of the black aesthetic. Both assert artistic agency and cultural continuity in the face of the oppression, social transformation, and cultural multiplicity of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book examines how African-American performative practices mediate the tension between the ostensibly de-racialized body politic and the hyper-racialized black, female body, reimagining the cultural and political ground that guides various articulations of American national belonging. Brown shows how and why black women writers and artists matter as agents of change, how and why the form and content of their works must be recognized and reconsidered in the increasingly frenzied arena of cultural production and political debate.

More books from Taylor and Francis

Cover of the book Turbo-folk Music and Cultural Representations of National Identity in Former Yugoslavia by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Man by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book The Peloponnesian War by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book Opec by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book The Archaeology of Mesopotamia by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book Understanding Contemporary American Conservatism by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740-1849 by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book A Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book An American Dilemma by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book The Politics of Regional Identity by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book Applied Photographic Optics by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book Megapolitan America by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book Small Wars and Insurgencies in Theory and Practice, 1500-1850 by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book Justinian by Caroline Brown
Cover of the book The Awkward Spaces of Fathering by Caroline Brown
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy