{"id":44656,"date":"2015-12-21T01:46:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T01:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44656"},"modified":"2016-03-25T20:59:38","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T20:59:38","slug":"under-the-sky-of-my-africa-alexander-pushkin-and-blackness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44656","title":{"rendered":"Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Northwestern University Press<\/a>
\nMay 2006
\n488 pages
\n6 1\/8 x 9 1\/4
\nPaper ISBN: ISBN 978-0-8101-1971-0<\/p>\n

Edited by:<\/p>\n

Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy<\/a> (1951-2015)<\/strong>, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Russian Literature and Culture
\nBarnard College
\nColumbia University, New York, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

Nicole Svobodny<\/a><\/strong>, Assistant Dean, College of Arts & Sciences; Senior Lecturer, International & Area Studies
\nWashington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri<\/em><\/p>\n

Ludmilla A. Trigo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Foreword by:<\/p>\n

Henry Louis Gates Jr.<\/a><\/strong>, Alphonse Fletcher University Professor; Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research
\nHarvard University<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Roughly in the year 1705, a young African boy, acquired from the seraglio<\/a> of the Turkish sultan<\/a>, was transported to Russia<\/a> as a gift to Peter the Great<\/a>. This child, later known as Abram Petrovich Gannibal<\/a>, was to become Peter’s godson and to live to a ripe old age, having attained the rank of general and the status of Russian nobility. More important, he was to become the great-grandfather of Russia’s greatest national poet, Alexander Pushkin<\/a>. It is the contention of the editors of this book, borne out by the essays in the collection, that Pushkin’s African ancestry has played the role of a “wild card” of sorts as a formative element in Russian cultural mythology; and that the ways in which Gannibal’s legacy has been included in or excluded from Pushkin’s biography over the last two hundred years can serve as a shifting marker of Russia’s self-definition.<\/p>\n

The first single volume in English on this rich topic, Under the Sky of My Africa<\/em> addresses the wide variety of interests implicated in the question of Pushkin’s blackness-race studies, politics, American studies, music, mythopoetic criticism, mainstream Pushkin studies. In essays that are by turns biographical, iconographical, cultural, and sociological in focus, the authors-representing a broad range of disciplines and perspectives-take us from the complex attitudes toward race in Russia during Pushkin’s era to the surge of racism in late Soviet<\/a> and post-Soviet contemporary Russia. In sum, Under the Sky of My Africa<\/em> provides a wealth of basic material on the subject as well as a series of provocative readings and interpretations that will influence future considerations of Pushkin and race in Russian culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness Northwestern University Press May 2006 488 pages 6 1\/8 x 9 1\/4 Paper ISBN: ISBN 978-0-8101-1971-0 Edited by: Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy (1951-2015), Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Russian Literature and Culture Barnard College Columbia University, New York, New York Nicole Svobodny, Assistant Dean, College of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1649,1245,11,28,1196,8,394],"tags":[22331,22330,3491,22329,22327,22328,22326,2935,22323,22324,22325,22317,7706],"class_list":["post-44656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthologies","category-anthropology","category-biography","category-books","category-europe","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","tag-abram-gannibal","tag-abram-petrovich-gannibal","tag-alexander-pushkin","tag-alexander-sergeyevich-pushkin","tag-catharine-nepomnyashchy","tag-catharine-t-nepomnyashchy","tag-catharine-theimer-nepomnyashchy","tag-henry-louis-gates-jr","tag-ludmilla-a-trigo","tag-ludmilla-trigo","tag-nicole-svobodny","tag-northwestern-university-press","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44657,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44656\/revisions\/44657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}