Category: Book/Video Reviews

  • Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature by Diana Adesola Mafe (review) Research in African Literatures Volume 46, Number 2, Summer 2015 pages 166-168 Tru Leverette, Associate Professor of English University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida Mafe, Diana Adesola, Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature: Coloring Outside the (Black and…

  • The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea by Robert Wald Sussman (review) Journal of Interdisciplinary History Volume 46, Number 1, Summer 2015 pages 109-111 Ruth Clifford Engs, Professor Emeritus of Applied Health Science Indiana University, Bloomington Sussman, Robert Wald, The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea (Cambridge:…

  • Transatlantic Spectacles of Race: The Tragic Mulatta and the Tragic Muse by Kimberly Snyder Manganelli (review) Callaloo Volume 38, Number 2, Spring 2015 pages 405-408 Justin Rogers-Cooper, Associate Professor of English LaGuardia Community College/City University of New York, Long Island City, New York Manganellia, Kimberly S., Transatlantic Spectacles of Race: The Tragic Mulatta and the…

  • An Overlooked Classic About the Comedy of Race The New Yorker 2015-05-07 Danzy Senna Illustration by Roman Muradov The first time I read Fran Ross’s hilarious, badass novel, “Oreo,” I was living on Fort Greene Place, in Brooklyn, in a community of people I thought of as “the dreadlocked élite.” It was the late nineteen-nineties,…

  • Three Unmissable Books That Can Help Us Honor Our Past Pacific Citizen: The National Newspaper of the JACL 2015-04-30 Ryan Kenji Kuramitsu, JACL MDC Youth Representative ‘It was books,” wrote social critic James Baldwin, “that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people…

  • Racial Reflections American Book Review Volume 36, Number 2, January/February 2015 page 13 DOI: 10.1353/abr.2015.0007 Ben Railton, Associate Professor of English Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg, Massachusetts Hobbs, Allyson, A Chosen Exile: History of Racial Passing in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014) Even without a back-cover blurb from Isabel Wilkerson, it seems inevitable that…

  • Color Blindness and Racial Politics in the Era of Obama Books & Ideas 2010-12-08 Andrew J. Diamond, Professor of American History and Civilization Université Paris-Sorbonne, France At a time when a supposedly “post-racial” America is becoming increasingly polarized over its first black president, historian Thomas Sugrue proposes a badly needed perspective on Obama’s attempts to…

  • Race and Republicanism Books & Ideas 2015-02-23 (Originally published in laviedesidees.fr on February 17, 2014.) Dominique Schnapper, Director of Studies École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France Translated by (with the support of the Florence Gould Foundation): Michael C. Behrent Though race is socially constructed, it nonetheless really exists: consequently, Magali Bessone argues,…

  • Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics by Lundy Braun (review) Configurations Volume 23, Number 1, Winter 2015 pages 127-130 DOI: 10.1353/con.2015.0000 Lindsey Andrews, Visiting Scholar of English Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory Duke University, Durham, North Carolina Braun, Lundy, Breathing Race into…

  • New Book Explores Role of Race for First Lady Michelle Obama Time 2015-03-30 Maya Rhodan, Reporter Author paints the First Lady as the President’s rock, notes the impact her background would have on her future as the nation’s first black First Lady During her senior year at Princeton University, First Lady Michelle Obama couldn’t imagine…