|
Books by Carol E.
Henderson
James Baldwin's Go tell It on the Mountain: Historical
and Critical Essays /
Scarring
the Black Body
* *
* * *
Reviews
Scarring
the Black Body
Race and Representation
in African American Literature
By Carol E. Henderson
Scarring and the act of
scarring are recurrent images in African American literature. In
Scarring
the Black Body, Carol E. Henderson analyzes the
cultural and historical implications of scarring in a number of
African American texts that feature the trope of the scar,
including works by Sherley Anne Williams, Toni Morrison, Ann
Petry, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright.
The first part of
Scarring
the Black Body, "The Call," traces the process by
which African bodies were Americanized through the practice of
branding. Henderson incorporates various materials -- from
advertisements for the return of runaways to slave
narratives--to examine the cultural practice of
"writing" the body. She also considers ways in which
writers and social activists, including Frederick Douglass,
Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth, developed
a "call" centered on the body's scars to demand that
people of African descent be given equal rights and protection
under the law.
In the second part of the
book, "The Response," Henderson goes on to show that
more recent representations of the conditions of slavery by
authors such as Williams and Morrison extend the efforts of
their predecessors by developing creative responses to those
calls centered around the African American body and its scars.
Henderson explores Williams's reinvention of the whip-scarred
body in her novel Dessa Rose and provides a close
analysis of Morrison's use of scar imagery in Beloved.
She also devotes a chapter to Petry's The Street and
concludes with an investigation of the wounded black male psyche
in the works of Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright.
Scarring
the Black Body
demonstrates that the creative acts of these authors bind
together that which has been wounded both literally and
figuratively. Those who hear the voices of the ancestors are
urged to connect to that part of themselves wherein wounds of
the past carry a self-knowledge that can alter the experiences
of the present. In this way, the disfigured body as a cultural
metaphor and social invention can come to terms with its own
humanity and embodiment.
Source:
Scarring
the Black Body: Race and Representation
in African American Literature
by Carol E. Henderson. Published November 2002, 216 pages
Dr. Carol E. Henderson is an Assistant Professor of
African American and American Literature at the University of Delaware,
Newark campus. She has published articles is such journals as Modern
Fiction Studies and Religion and Literature. Her recent publications include a 7,000 word critical
biography on the noted cultural theorist bell hooks in Dictionary of
Literary Biography series, and a forthcoming article entitled
"In the Shadow of Streetlights: Loss, Restoration, and the
Performance of Identity in Black Women’s Literature of the City,"
in Alizes, Journal of the Universite de La Reunion, France. Her book, Scarring the Black Body: Race and Representation in
African American Literature ( University of
Missouri Press, Fall 2002) now available at www.amazon.com,
is a study on the
recurring theme of scarring and disfigurement in African American literature of
the 19th and 20th century.
|
Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
 |
* *
* * *
|
|
Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
update 7 December 2011
|
