Category: Literary/Artistic Criticism

  • This book illuminates the racialized nature of twenty-first century Western popular culture by exploring how discourses of race circulate in the Fantasy genre.

  • Making Jokes and History in An Octoroon African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) 2016-06-25 Christopher Bonner, Assistant Professor of History University of Maryland Last weekend I saw a performance of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins‘ play An Octoroon, which is a reimagining of Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon, a popular 1859 melodrama set on a Louisiana plantation. There is…

  • “Yes We Can” Barack Obama’s Proverbial Rhetoric Peter Lang Publishing 2009 352 pages Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4331-0668-2 Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4331-0667 Wolfgang Mieder, Professor of German and Folklore University of Vermont As President Barack Obama outlined his promise for change during the presidential campaign, he made effective use of proverbs and proverbial phrases, and invented many quotable…

  • Paul Gilroy: Race and ‘Useful Violence’ Public Seminar 2016-07-08 McKenzie Wark, Professor of Culture and Media in Liberal Studies The New School for Social Research #BLM passes The New School. Aimé Césaire called it: the so-called west is a decaying civilization. In both the United States and Europe, where institutions are receding, a base level…

  • Efún: “White Love” and Modernity in Guinea Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 19, 2015 pages 33-54 DOI: 10.1353/hcs.2016.0026 Kathleen Connolly, Assistant Professor of Spanish Western Oregon University, Monmouth, Oregon This paper analyzes the award-winning novel Efún (1955), by Liberata Masoliver. The novel, a romance-adventure set in Equatorial Guinea, stages a cosmopolitan, white identity…

  • The Cuban writer Nicolás Guillén has traditionally been considered a poet of mestizaje, a term that, whilst denoting racial mixture, also refers to a homogenizing nationalist discourse that proclaims the harmonious nature of Cuban identity. Yet, many aspects of Guillén’s work enhance black Cuban and Afro-Cuban identities.

  • Kafka’s Blues: Figurations of Racial Blackness in the Construction of an Aesthetic Northwestern University Press June 2016 184 pages 6 x 9 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8101-3286-3 Paper ISBN: 978-0-8101-3285-6 E-book ISBN: 978-0-8101-3287-0 Mark Christian Thompson, Associate Professor of English Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland Kafka’s Blues proves the startling thesis that many of Kafka’s major works engage…

  • Martyrs of Miscegenation: Racial and National Identities in Nineteenth-Century Mexico Hispanófila Volume 132 (2001) pages 25-42 Lee Joan Skinner, Associate Professor of Spanish Claremont McKenna College The two most powerful critical paradigms for dealing with the relationship between literature and national identity in nineteenth—century Latin America have been those established by Benedict Anderson and Doris Sommer. In Anderson’s…

  • The Optics of Interracial Sexuality in Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings and Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven College Literature Volume 41, Number 1, Winter 2014 pages 119-148 DOI: 10.1353/lit.2014.0004 Jolie A. Sheffer, Associate Professor, English and American Culture Studies Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio This essay focuses on the racial…

  • Confounding Anti-racism: Mixture, Racial Democracy, and Post-racial Politics in Brazil Critical Sociology July 2016, Volume 42, Numbers 4-5 pages 495-513 DOI: 10.1177/0896920513508663 Alexandre Emboaba Da Costa, Assistant Professor, Theoretical, Cultural and International Studies in Education University of Alberta, Canada In this article, I analyze the particularity of post-racial ideology in Brazil. I examine recent deployments…