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The Origins of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay
by Thierry SmolderenIn The Origins of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay, Thierry Smolderen presents a cultural landscape whose narrative differs in many ways from those presented by other historians of the comic strip. Rather than beginning his inquiry with the popularly accepted "sequential art" definition of the comic strip, Smolderen instead wishes to engage with the historical dimensions that inform that definition. His goal is to understand the processes that led to the twentieth-century comic strip, the highly recognizable species of picture stories that he sees crystallizing around 1900 in the United States. Featuring close readings of the picture stories, caricatures, and humoristic illustrations of William Hogarth, Rodolphe Töpffer, Gustave Doré, and their many contemporaries, Smolderen establishes how these artists were immersed in a very old visual culture in which images—satirical images in particular—were deciphered in a way that was often described as hieroglyphical. Across eight chapters, he acutely points out how the effect of the printing press and the mass advent of audiovisual technologies (photography, audio recording, and cinema) at the end of the nineteenth century led to a new twentieth-century visual culture. In tracing this evolution, Smolderen distinguishes himself from other comics historians by following a methodology that explains the present state of the form of comics on the basis of its history, rather than presenting the history of the form on the basis of its present state. This study remaps the history of this influential art form.
The Construction of Whiteness: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Race Formation and the Meaning of a White Identity
by Stephen Middleton David R. Roediger Donald M. ShafferA CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2017This volume collects interdisciplinary essays that examine the crucial intersection between whiteness as a privileged racial category and the various material practices (social, cultural, political, and economic) that undergird white ideological influence in America. In truth, the need to examine whiteness as a problem has rarely been grasped outside academic circles. The ubiquity of whiteness--its pervasive quality as an ideal that is at once omnipresent and invisible--makes it the very epitome of the mainstream in America. And yet the undeniable relationship between whiteness and inequality in this country necessitates a thorough interrogation of its formation, its representation, and its reproduction. Essays here seek to do just that work. Editors and contributors interrogate whiteness as a social construct, revealing the underpinnings of narratives that foster white skin as an ideal of beauty, intelligence, and power.Contributors examine whiteness from several disciplinary perspectives, including history, communication, law, sociology, and literature. Its breadth and depth makes The Construction of Whiteness a refined introduction to the critical study of race for a new generation of scholars, undergraduates, and graduate students. Moreover, the interdisciplinary approach of the collection will appeal to scholars in African and African American studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, legal studies, and more. This collection delivers an important contribution to the field of whiteness studies in its multifaceted impact on American history and culture.
Between Generations: Collaborative Authorship in the Golden Age of Children's Literature (Children's Literature Association Series)
by Victoria Ford SmithWinner of the Children’s Literature Association’s 2019 Book AwardBetween Generations is a multidisciplinary volume that reframes children as powerful forces in the production of their own literature and culture by uncovering a tradition of creative, collaborative partnerships between adults and children in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. The intergenerational collaborations documented here provide the foundations for some of the most popular Victorian literature for children, from Margaret Gatty's Aunt Judy's Tales to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Examining the publication histories of both canonical and lesser-known Golden Age texts reveals that children collaborated with adult authors as active listeners, coauthors, critics, illustrators, and even small-scale publishers. These literary collaborations were part of a growing interest in child agency evident in cultural, social, and scientific discourses of the time. Between Generations puts these creative partnerships in conversation with collaborations in other fields, including child study, educational policy, library history, and toy culture. Taken together, these collaborations illuminate how Victorians used new critical approaches to childhood to theorize young people as viable social actors. Smith's work not only recognizes Victorian children as literary collaborators but also interrogates how those creative partnerships reflect and influence adult-child relationships in the world beyond books. Between Generations breaks the critical impasse that understands children's literature and children themselves as products of adult desire and revises common constructions of childhood that frequently and often errantly resign the young to passivity or powerlessness.
Turncoats, Traitors, and Fellow Travelers: Culture and Politics of the Early Cold War
by Arthur ReddingThe Cold War was unique in the way films, books, television shows, colleges and universities, and practices of everyday life were enlisted to create American political consensus. This coercion fostered a seemingly hegemonic, nationally unified perspective devoted to spreading a capitalist, socially conservative notion of freedom throughout the world to fight Communism. In Turncoats, Traitors, and Fellow Travelers: Culture and Politics of the Early Cold War, Arthur Redding traces the historical contours of this manufactured consent by considering the ways in which authors, playwrights, and directors participated in, responded to, and resisted the construction of Cold War discourses. The book argues that a fugitive resistance to the status quo emerged as writers and activists variously fled into exile, went underground, or grudgingly accommodated themselves to the new spirit of the times. To this end, Redding examines work by a wide swath of creators, including essayists (W. E. B. Du Bois and F. O. Matthiessen), novelists (Ralph Ellison, Patricia Highsmith, Jane Bowles, and Paul Bowles), playwrights (Arthur Miller), poets (Sylvia Plath), and filmmakers (Elia Kazan and John Ford). The book explores how writers and artists created works that went against mainstream notions of liberty and offered alternatives to the false dichotomy between capitalist freedom and totalitarian tyranny. These complex responses and the era they reflect had and continue to have profound effects on American and international cultural and intellectual life, as can be seen in the connections Redding makes between past and present.
Cross the Water Blues: African American Music in Europe (American Made Music Series)
by Neil A. WynnContributions from Christopher G. Bakriges, Sean Creighton, Jeffrey Green, Leighton Grist, Bob Groom, Rainer E. Lotz, Paul Oliver, Catherine Parsonage, Iris Schmeisser, Roberta Freund Schwartz, Robert Springer, Rupert Till, Guido van Rijn, David Webster, Jen Wilson, and Neil A. WynnThis unique collection of essays examines the flow of African American music and musicians across the Atlantic to Europe from the time of slavery to the twentieth century. In a sweeping examination of different musical forms--spirituals, blues, jazz, skiffle, and orchestral music--the contributors consider the reception and influence of black music on a number of different European audiences, particularly in Britain, but also France, Germany, and the Netherlands.The essayists approach the subject through diverse historical, musicological, and philosophical perspectives. A number of essays document little-known performances and recordings of African American musicians in Europe. Several pieces, including one by Paul Oliver, focus on the appeal of the blues to British listeners. At the same time, these considerations often reveal the ambiguous nature of European responses to black music and in so doing add to our knowledge of transatlantic race relations.
Chronicle of a Camera: The Arriflex 35 in North America, 1945–1972
by Norris PopeThis volume provides a history of the most consequential 35mm motion picture camera introduced in North America in the quarter century following the Second World War: the Arriflex 35. It traces the North American history of this camera from 1945 through 1972—when the first lightweight, self-blimped 35mm cameras became available. Chronicle of a Camera emphasizes theatrical film production, documenting the Arriflex's increasingly important role in expanding the range of production choices, styles, and even content of American motion pictures in this period. The book's exploration culminates most strikingly in examples found in feature films dating from the 1960s and early 1970s, including a number of films associated with what came to be known as the “Hollywood New Wave.” The author shows that the Arriflex prompted important innovation in three key areas: it greatly facilitated and encouraged location shooting; it gave cinematographers new options for intensifying visual style and content; and it stimulated low-budget and independent production. Films in which the Arriflex played an absolutely central role include Bullitt, The French Connection, and, most significantly, Easy Rider. Using an Arriflex for car-mounted shots, hand-held shots, and zoom-lens shots led to greater cinematic realism and personal expression.
Builders of a New South: Merchants, Capital, and the Remaking of Natchez, 1865–1914
by Aaron D. AndersonBuilders of a New South describes how, between 1865 and 1914, ten Natchez mercantile families emerged as leading purveyors in the wholesale plantation supply and cotton handling business, and soon became a dominant force in the social and economic Reconstruction of the Natchez District. They were able to take advantage of postwar conditions in Natchez to gain mercantile prominence by supplying planters and black sharecroppers in the plantation supply and cotton buying business. They parlayed this initial success into cotton plantation ownership and became important local businessmen in Natchez, participating in many civic improvements and politics that shaped the district into the twentieth century. This book digs deep in countless records (including census, tax, property, and probate, as well as thousands of chattel mortgage contracts) to explore how these traders functioned as entrepreneurs in the aftermath of the Civil War, examining closely their role as furnishing merchants and land speculators, as well as their relations with the area's planters and freed black population. Their use of favorable laws protecting them as creditors, along with a solid community base that was civic-minded and culturally intact, greatly assisted them in their success. These families prospered partly because of their good business practices, and partly because local whites and blacks embraced them as useful agents in the emerging new marketplace. The situation created by the aftermath of the war and emancipation provided an ideal circumstance for the merchant families, and in the end, they played a key role in the district's economic survival and were the prime modernizers of Natchez.
Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic
by Joel E. VesselsIn France, Belgium, and other Francophone countries, comic strips—called bande dessinee or “BD” in French—have long been considered a major art form capable of addressing a host of contemporary issues. Among French-speaking intelligentsia, graphic narratives were deemed worthy of canonization and critical study decades before the academy and the press in the United States embraced comics. The place that BD holds today, however, belies the contentious political route the art form has traveled. In Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic, author Joel E. Vessels examines the trek of BD from it being considered a fomenter of rebellion, to a medium suitable only for semi-literates, to an impediment to education, and most recently to an art capable of addressing social concerns in mainstream culture. In the mid-1800s, alarmists feared political caricatures might incite the ire of an illiterate working class. To counter this notion, proponents yoked the art to a particular articulation of “Frenchness” based on literacy and reason. With the post-World War II economic upswing, French consumers saw BD as a way to navigate the changes brought by modernization. After bande dessinee came to be understood as a compass for the masses, the government, especially Francois Mitterand’s administration, brought comics increasingly into “official” culture. Vessels argues that BD are central to the formation of France’s self-image and a self-awareness of what it means to be French.
Oz behind the Iron Curtain: Aleksandr Volkov and His Magic Land Series (Children's Literature Association Series)
by Erika HaberRecipient of the 2018 Outstanding Faculty Research Achievement Award in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at Syracuse UniversityIn 1939, Aleksandr Volkov (1891-1977) published Wizard of the Emerald City, a revised version of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Only a line on the copyright page explained the book as a "reworking" of the American story. Readers credited Volkov as author rather than translator. Volkov, an unknown and inexperienced author before World War II, tried to break into the politically charged field of Soviet children's literature with an American fairy tale. During the height of Stalin's purges, Volkov adapted and published this fairy tale in the Soviet Union despite enormous, sometimes deadly, obstacles.Marketed as Volkov's original work, Wizard of the Emerald City spawned a series that was translated into more than a dozen languages and became a staple of Soviet popular culture, not unlike Baum's fourteen-volume Oz series in the United States. Volkov's books inspired a television series, plays, films, musicals, animated cartoons, and a museum. Today, children's authors and fans continue to add volumes to the Magic Land series. Several generations of Soviet Russian and Eastern European children grew up with Volkov's writings, yet know little about the author and even less about his American source, L. Frank Baum. Most Americans have never heard of Volkov and know nothing of his impact in the Soviet Union, and those who do know of him regard his efforts as plagiarism.Erika Haber demonstrates how the works of both Baum and Volkov evolved from being popular children's literature and became compelling and enduring cultural icons in both the US and USSR/Russia, despite being dismissed and ignored by critics, scholars, and librarians for many years.
To See Them Run: Great Plains Coyote Coursing
by Eric A. EliasonTo See Them Run explores how and why Great Plains hunters have chased coyotes with greyhounds and other sight hounds since before George Armstrong Custer. Though a well-developed, long-lived, widespread, and undeniably enthralling tradition, the practice remains little known, even to those living in Oklahoma, Nebraska, and South Dakota, where the tradition is common. Coyote coursing, hunting with greyhounds launched from specially made pickup rigs, is a hobby by locals, for locals, and it has remained a quintessentially vernacular enterprise occupying a rung below the Plains’ prestige forms of animal training and interaction—namely with horses and cattle. The coyote coursing tradition provides an ideal setting for exploring the relationship between animals and the study of folklore. The book examines the artistry, thrills, values, camaraderie, economy, and controversies of this uncommercialized and never-before-studied vernacular tradition. Through ethnographic photographs and authentic collected commentary from participants, this book uncovers how hunting dogs and coyotes both have shaped and been shaped by human aesthetic sensibilities in ongoing folkloric and biological processes. Author Eric A. Eliason and photographer Scott Squire discover deep and sophisticated local knowledge in a unique interaction with the natural ecologies of the great North American prairie.
Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction
by Isiah Lavender IIIContributions by Suparno Banerjee, Cait Coker, Jeshua Enriquez, Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Malisa Kurtz, Stephanie Li, Bradford Lyau, Uppinder Mehan, Graham J. Murphy, Baryon Tensor Posadas, Amy J. Ransom, Robin Anne Reid, Haerin Shin, Stephen Hong Sohn, Takayuki Tatsumi, and Timothy J. Yamamura Isiah Lavender III's Dis-Orienting Planets amplifies critical issues surrounding the racial and ethnic dimensions of science fiction. This edited volume explores depictions of Asia and Asians in science fiction literature, film, and fandom with particular regard to China, Japan, India, and Korea. Dis-Orienting Planets highlights so-called yellow and brown peoples from the constellation of a historically white genre. The collection launches into political representations of Asian identity in science fiction's imagination, from fear of the Yellow Peril and its racist stereotypes to techno-Orientalism and the remains of a postcolonial heritage. Thus the essays, by contributors such as Takayuki Tatsumi, Veronica Hollinger, Uppinder Mehan, and Stephen Hong Sohn, reconfigure the very study of race in science fiction. A follow-up to Lavender's Black and Brown Planets, this collection expands the racial politics governing the renewed visibility of Asia in science fiction. One of the few on this subject, the volume probes Gary Shteyngart's novel Super Sad True Love Story, the acclaimed film Cloud Atlas, and Guillermo del Toro's monster film Pacific Rim, among others. Dis-Orienting Planets embarks on a wide-ranging assessment of Asian representations in science fiction, upon the determination that our visions of the future must include all people of color.
The Crawfish Book
by Glen PitreAmerican Indians worshiped them as creators of the world, Napoleon ate them to celebrate his victories, Swedes have them shipped in from halfway around the world, and for Louisiana's Cajuns the humble crawfish is the centerpiece of cuisine, a symbol of ethnic pride, a staple commodity for thriving business ventures, and an inextricable part of folklore. Research and interviews spice this delightful book that details the relationship between crawfish and humans—from antiquity to the New York markets of the 1880s; from Depression-era pauper's feast to gourmet entree of the 1980s Cajun cooking craze; from spring afternoon pastime to modern aquaculture agribusiness. To get the reader's mouth watering, more than two dozen recipes from those who know crawfish best—both famous chefs and crawfishers—are interspersed throughout. Sections offer advice on catching, buying, handling, cooking, and, for those who wish to simplify their encounters with crawfish, ordering tasty dishes in restaurants. Included are also a bibliographical essay, an index to recipes, and a list of sources for spices, paraphernalia, and airfreight shipments of crawfish.
The Press and Race: Mississippi Journalists Confront the Movement
by David R. DaviesFor southern newspapers and southern readers, the social upheaval in the years following Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was, as Time put it in 1956, “the region's biggest running story since slavery.” The southern press struggled with the region's accommodation of the school desegregation ruling and with Black America's demand for civil rights. The nine essays in The Press and Race illuminate the broad array of print journalists' responses to the civil rights movement in Mississippi, a state that was one of the nation's major civil rights battlegrounds. Three of the journalists covered won Pulitzer Prizes for their work and one was the first female editorial writer to earn that coveted prize. The journalists and editors covered are Hodding Carter, Jr. (Greenville Delta Democrat-Times), J. Oliver Emmerich (McComb Enterprise-Journal), Percy Greene (Jackson Advocate), Ira B. Harkey, Jr. (Pascagoula Chronicle), George A. McLean (Tupelo Journal), Bill Minor (New Orleans Times-Picayune), Hazel Brannon Smith (Lexington Adviser), and Jimmy Ward (Jackson Daily News). Their editorial stances run the gamut from moderates such as Minor, Smith, and Carter, Jr., to openly segregationist editors such as Ward and Greene. The Press and Race follows the press from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision to 1965, when Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. Those years saw some of the most notable events of the civil rights movement—the South's resistance to school desegregation throughout the 1950s and 1960s; the Freedom Rides of 1961; James Meredith's admission into the University of Mississippi in 1962; the assassination of Medgar Evers in 1963; and the events of Freedom Summer in 1964. These essays present an in-depth analysis of the editorials, articles, journalistic standards, and work of Mississippi newspaper reporters and editors as they covered this tumultuous era in American history. While a handful of Mississippi journalists openly defended Black people and challenged the state's racial policies, others responded by redoubling their support of Mississippi's segregated society. Still others responded with a moderate defense of Black Americans' legal rights, while at the same time defending the status quo of segregation. The Press and Race reveals the outrage, emotion, and deliberation of the people who would soon be carrying out the nation's command to end segregation. The journalists discussed here were southerners and insiders in a crisis. Their writing made journalism history.
Fragile Grounds: Louisiana's Endangered Cemeteries (America's Third Coast Series)
by Jessica H. Schexnayder Mary H. ManheinRecipient of a 2018 Preserve Louisiana Award and a 2018 Coastal Stewardship AwardFragile Grounds compiles stories and photographs of endangered cemeteries throughout Louisiana's coastal zone and beyond. These burial places link the fragile land to the frailty of the state's threatened community structures. The book highlights the state's vibrant diversity by showing its unique burial customs and traditions, while it also identifies the urgent need for ongoing documentation of cultural elements at risk.Cemeteries associated with the culturally rich communities of Louisiana reflect the history and global settlement patterns of the state. Yet many are endangered due to recurring natural and man-made events. Nearly 80 percent of the nation's coastal land loss occurs in Louisiana. Coastal erosion, sinking land, flooding, storm surge, and sea-level rise have led to an inland migration that threatens to unravel the fabric of Louisiana and, by association, hastens the demise of its burial places.As people are forced inland, migrants abandon, neglect, or often overlook cemeteries as part of the cultural landscape. In terms of erosion, when the land goes, the cemetery goes with it. Cemeteries fall prey to inland and coastal flooding. As cities grow outward, urban sprawl takes over the landscape. Cemeteries lose out to forces such as expansion, eminent domain, and urban neglect. Not only do cemeteries give comfort for the living, but they also serve as a vital link to the past. Once lost, that past cannot be recovered.
Eleanor Cameron: Dimensions of Amazement
by Paul V. AllenEleanor Cameron (1912-1996) was an innovative and genre-defying author of children's fiction and children's literature criticism. From her beginnings as a librarian, Cameron went on to become a prominent and respected voice in children's literature, writing one of the most beloved children's science fiction novels of all time, The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, and later winning the National Book Award for her time fantasy The Court of the Stone Children.In addition, Eleanor Cameron played an often vocal role in critical debates about children's literature. She was one of the first authors to take up literary criticism of children's novels and published two influential books of criticism, including The Green and Burning Tree. One of Cameron's most notable acts of criticism came in 1973, when she wrote a scathing critique of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dahl responded in kind, and the result was a fiery imbroglio within the pages of the Horn Book Magazine. Yet despite her many accomplishments, most of Cameron's books went out of print by the end of her life, and her star faded.This biography aims to reinsert Cameron into the conversation by taking an in-depth look at her tumultuous early life in Ohio and California, her unforgettably forceful personality and criticism, and her graceful, heartfelt novels. The biography includes detailed analysis of the creative process behind each of her published works and how Cameron's feminism, environmentalism, and strong sense of ethics are reflected in and represented by her writings. Drawn from over twenty interviews, thousands of letters, and several unpublished manuscripts in her personal papers, Eleanor Cameron is a tour of the most exciting and creative periods of American children's literature through the experience of one of its valiant purveyors and champions.
Island at War: Puerto Rico in the Crucible of the Second World War (Caribbean Studies Series)
by Jorge Rodríguez BeruffDespite Puerto Rico being the hub of the United States' naval response to the German blockade of the Caribbean, there is very little published scholarship on the island's heavy involvement in the global conflict of World War II. Recently, a new generation of scholars has been compiling interdisciplinary research with fresh insights about the profound wartime changes, which in turn generated conditions for the rapid economic, social, and political development of postwar Puerto Rico. The island's subsequent transformation cannot be adequately grasped without tracing its roots to the war years. Island at War brings together outstanding new research on Puerto Rico and makes it accessible in English. It covers ten distinct topics written by nine distinguished scholars from the Caribbean and beyond. Contributors include experts in the fields of history, political science, sociology, literature, journalism, communications, and engineering. Topics include US strategic debate and war planning for the Caribbean on the eve of World War II, Puerto Rico as the headquarters of the Caribbean Sea frontier, war and political transition in Puerto Rico, the war economy of Puerto Rico, the German blockade of the Caribbean in 1942, and the story of a Puerto Rican officer in the Second World War and Korea. With these essays and others, Island at War represents the cutting edge of scholarship on the role of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in World War II and its aftermath.
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and States' Rights
by Yasuhiro KatagiriIn 1956, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously outlawed legally imposed racial segregation in public schools, Mississippi created the State Sovereignty Commission. This was the executive agency established “to protect the sovereignty of the State of Mississippi . . . from encroachment thereon by the Federal Government.” The code word encroachment implied the state's strong resolve to preserve and protect the racial status quo. In the nomenclature the formality of the word sovereignty supposedly lent dignity to the actions of the Commission. For all practical purposes the Sovereignty Commission intended to wage this Deep South state's monolithic resistance to desegregation and to the ever-intensifying crusade for civil rights in Mississippi. In 1998 the papers of the Commission were made available for examination. No other state has such extensive and detailed documentary records from a similar agency. Exposed to public light, they unmasked the Commission as a counterrevolutionary department for political and social intrigue that infringed on individual constitutional rights and worked toward discrediting the civil rights movement by tarnishing the reputations of activists. As the eyes of the citizenry studied the records, the Commission slid from sovereign and segregated to unsavory and abominable. This book, the first to give a comprehensive history of this watchdog agency, shows how, to this day, the Sovereignty Commission remains obscure, debated, and for many citizens a star chamber of the most sinister sort. Why was the Commission created? What were some of the political and social climates that initiated its creation? What were its activities during its seventeen years? What was its impact on the course of Mississippi and southern history? Drawing on the newly opened materials at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, this examination gives answers to such questions and traces the vicissitudes that took the Commission from governmental limelight to public opprobrium. This book also looks at the attitudes of the state's white citizenry, who, upon realizing the Commission's failure, saw the importance of a nonviolent accommodation of civil rights.
Stanley Kubrick: Adapting the Sublime
by Elisa PezzottaAlthough Stanley Kubrick adapted novels and short stories, his films deviate in notable ways from the source material. In particular, since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), his films seem to definitively exploit all cinematic techniques, embodying a compelling visual and aural experience. But, as author Elisa Pezzotta contends, it is for these reasons that his cinema becomes the supreme embodiment of the sublime, fruitful encounter between the two arts and, simultaneously, of their independence. Stanley Kubrick's last six adaptations—2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)—are characterized by certain structural and stylistic patterns. These features help to draw conclusions about the role of Kubrick in the history of cinema, about his role as an adapter, and, more generally, about the art of cinematic adaptations. The structural and stylistic patterns that characterize Kubrick adaptations seem to criticize scientific reasoning, causality, and traditional semantics. In the history of cinema, Kubrick can be considered a modernist auteur. In particular, he can be regarded as an heir of the modernist avant-garde of the 1920s. However, author Elisa Pezzotta concludes that, unlike his predecessors, Kubrick creates a cinema not only centered on the ontology of the medium, but on the staging of sublime, new experiences.
Nationalism, Marxism, and African American Literature between the Wars: A New Pandora's Box
by Anthony DawahareDuring and after the Harlem Renaissance, two intellectual forces—nationalism and Marxism—clashed and changed the future of African American writing. Current literary thinking says that writers with nationalist leanings wrote the most relevant fiction, poetry, and prose of the day. Nationalism, Marxism, and African American Literature Between the Wars: A New Pandora's Box challenges that notion. It boldly proposes that such writers as A. Philip Randolph, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright, who often saw the world in terms of class struggle, did more to advance the anti-racist politics of African American letters than writers such as Countee Cullen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Alain Locke, and Marcus Garvey, who remained enmeshed in nationalist and racialist discourse. Evaluating the great impact of Marxism and nationalism on black authors from the Harlem Renaissance and the Depression era, Anthony Dawahare argues that the spread of nationalist ideologies and movements between the world wars did guide legitimate political desires of black writers for a world without racism. But the nationalist channels of political and cultural resistance did not address the capitalist foundation of modern racial discrimination. During the period known as the “Red Decade” (1929–1941), black writers developed some of the sharpest critiques of the capitalist world and thus anticipated contemporary scholarship on the intellectual and political hazards of nationalism for the working class. As it examines the progression of the Great Depression, the book focuses on the shift of black writers to the Communist Left, including analyses of the Communists' position on the “Negro Question,” the radical poetry of Langston Hughes, and the writings of Richard Wright.
Botánicas: Sacred Spaces of Healing and Devotion in Urban America
by Joseph M. MurphyBotánicas is an exploration in text and photographs of spiritual shops found in Latino neighborhoods throughout the United States. Readers discover these marvelous spaces and their alternative spiritualties that help patrons cope with the grind and challenges of city life. Botánicas provide access to an array of invisible powers and sell the ingredients to construct symbolic solutions to their patrons' problems. The stores are bright and baroque, and the powers they invoke come from religious traditions in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the native Americas. In Botánicas, Joseph M. Murphy offers a cultural history of the devotions on display and a reflection on the efficacy of their powers to heal. Readers will come to see that the goods and devotions of botánicas give their patrons--mostly Latino, often immigrants--pathways for empowerment and transformation.The name botánicas comes from the "botanicals" for sale, herbs and plants with healing powers. The pharmacopeia of botánicas can be vast, and owners may know hundreds of remedies for treating problems of health, wealth, and love. Botánicas vend herbs for upset stomach, herbs for finding a job, and herbs for wooing back a wayward spouse. Supplementing these medicinal and magical plants, botánicas sell candles, holy statues, and tools for devotion to an array of spiritual powers--Catholic saints, African gods, indigenous spirits, and Asian divinities. Each spirit has its own ritual of petition, and botánica owners can discern the proper offerings and prayers to help the supplicant.Murphy explains the religions of the botánica with subtlety and sensitivity. He gives readers a deep sense of the contexts of the stores and a sophisticated analysis of the religious traditions that suffuse them. Visually fascinating, culturally rich, and religiously profound, Botánicas is a window into a world of beauty and power.
Comics and Language: Reimagining Critical Discourse on the Form
by Hannah MiodragIt has become an axiom in comic studies that "comics is a language, not a genre." But what exactly does that mean, and how is discourse on the form both aided and hindered by thinking of it in linguistic terms? In Comics and Language, Hannah Miodrag challenges many of the key assumptions about the "grammar" and formal characteristics of comics, and offers a more nuanced, theoretical framework that she argues will better serve the field by offering a consistent means for communicating critical theory in the scholarship. Through engaging close readings and an accessible use of theory, this book exposes the problems embedded in the ways critics have used ideas of language, literature, structuralism, and semiotics, and sets out a new and more theoretically sound way of understanding how comics communicate. Comics and Language argues against the critical tendency to flatten the distinctions between language and images and to discuss literature purely in terms of story content. It closely examines the original critical theories that such arguments purport to draw on and shows how they in fact point away from the conclusions they are commonly used to prove. The book improves the use the field makes of existing scholarly disciplines and furthers the ongoing sophistication of the field. It provides animated and insightful analyses of a range of different texts and takes an interdisciplinary approach. Comics and Language will appeal to the general comics reader and will prove crucial for specialized scholars in the fields of comics, literature, cultural studies, art history, and visual studies. It also provides a valuable summary of the current state of formalist criticism within comics studies and so presents the ideal text for those interested in exploring this growing area of research
The Legacy of Eric Williams: Into the Postcolonial Moment (Caribbean Studies Series)
by Tanya L. ShieldsThe Legacy of Eric Williams provides an indispensable and significant understanding of Eric Williams's contributions to the now independent nation of Trinidad and Tobago and his impact on the broader international understanding of the Caribbean. This book stands out because of its simultaneous investigation into Eric Williams as a scholar/intellectual, a political leader, and, most importantly, a key postcolonial figure. Most previous studies have treated these as separate arenas.The essays here confront the relevance of postcolonialism in understanding Williams's role both in post-independence Trinidad and Tobago and in newer understandings of Caribbean globalization. The volume divides into three broad sections--"Becoming Eric Williams," "Political Williams," and "Textual Williams." "Becoming Eric Williams" provides background on Williams and the Caribbean's ontological quest, addressing what it means to be West Indian and Caribbean. "Political Williams" engages with his policies and their consequences, describing the impact of Williams's political policies on several areas: integration, color stratification, and labor and public sector reform. Williams's far-reaching political influence in these aspects cements his legacy as one of the main public intellectuals responsible for creating the modern Caribbean. "Textual Williams" examines his scholarly contributions from a more traditional academic perspective. These sections allow for a comprehensive understanding of Williams as a man, a scholar, and a politician.
Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes (Hollywood Legends Series)
by Matthew KennedyJoan Blondell: A Life between Takes is the first major biography of the effervescent, scene-stealing actress (1906-1979) who conquered motion pictures, vaudeville, Broadway, summer stock, television, and radio. Born the child of vaudevillians, she was on stage by age three. With her casual sex appeal, distinctive cello voice, megawatt smile, luminous saucer eyes, and flawless timing, she came into widespread fame in Warner Bros. musicals and comedies of the 1930s, including Blonde Crazy, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade. Frequent co-star to James Cagney, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, and Humphrey Bogart, friend to Judy Garland, Barbara Stanwyck, and Bette Davis, and wife of Dick Powell and Mike Todd, Joan Blondell was a true Hollywood insider. By the time of her death, she had made nearly 100 films in a career that spanned over fifty years. Privately, she was unerringly loving and generous, while her life was touched by financial, medical, and emotional upheavals. Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes is meticulously researched, expertly weaving the public and private, and features numerous interviews with family, friends, and colleagues.
Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2008, Second Edition
by Jere Nash Andy TaggartOriginally published in 2006, Mississippi Politics quickly became the definitive work on the state's recent political history, campaigns, legislative battles, and litigation, as well as how Mississippi shaped and was shaped by national and regional trends. A central theme of the 2006 edition was the state's gradual transition from a Democratic surety to a Republican stronghold. For this updated edition, authors Jere Nash and Andy Taggart examine the aftermath of the 2007 gubernatorial and 2008 presidential elections—and all the fireworks in between. This new edition adds a chapter covering the last two years and includes analyses of the 2007 and 2008 statewide, legislative, and federal elections; the resignations of Senator Trent Lott and Congressman Chip Pickering; the indictments of Richard Scruggs and other prominent lawyers; President Barack Obama's influence on the state's 2008 voting dynamics; and the election of House Speaker Billy McCoy.
Nobody Knows Where the Blues Come From: Lyrics and History (American Made Music Series)
by Robert SpringerMusicians and music scholars rightly focus on the sounds of the blues and the colorful life stories of blues performers. Equally important and, until now, inadequately studied are the lyrics. The international contributors to Nobody Knows Where the Blues Come From explore this aspect of the blues and establish the significance of African American popular song as a neglected form of oral history.“High Water Everywhere: Blues and Gospel Commentary on the 1927 Mississippi River Flood,” by David Evans, is the definitive study of songs about one of the greatest natural disasters in the history of the United States. In “Death by Fire: African American Popular Music on the Natchez Rhythm Club Fire,” Luigi Monge analyzes a continuum of songs about exclusively African American tragedy. “Lookin’ for the Bully: An Enquiry into a Song and Its Story,” by Paul Oliver traces the origins and the many avatars of the Bully song. In “That Dry Creek Eaton Clan: A North Mississippi Murder Ballad of the 1930s,” Tom Freeland and Chris Smith study a ballad recorded in 1939 by a black convict at Parchman prison farm. “Coolidge’s Blues: African American Blues from the Roaring Twenties” is Guido van Rijn’s survey of blues of that decade. Robert Springer's “On the Electronic Trail of Blues Formulas” presents a number of conclusions about the spread of patterns in blues narratives. In “West Indies Blues: An Historical Overview 1920s-1950s,” John Cowley turns his attention to West Indian songs produced on the American mainland. Finally, in “Ethel Waters: ‘Long, Lean, Lanky Mama,’” Randall Cherry reappraises the early career of this blues and vaudeville singer