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The
Tragic Black Buck: Racial
Masquerading
in the American Literary
Imagination
By Carlyle Van Thompson
New Book Argues Jay Gatsby Was
A Black Man
New York, NY-- Jay
Gatsby was a Black Man passing for White? This is what
Dr. Carlyle Van Thompson is proposing, in his new book,
The
Tragic Black Buck: Racial Masquerading in the American Literary
Imagination.
About
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, Dr.
Thompson writes, “Essentially, beyond its class and ethnic
stratifications,
The Great Gatsby raises critical
questions about racial identity. Thus, my argument here is that,
although Jay Gatsby advances himself in terms of socioeconomic
subjectivity, he is more significantly characterized as a
dangerous ‘pale’ individual, culturally, socially, and
legally designated as black, who attempts to pass himself off as
a sophisticated and very wealthy white individual. Accordingly, in this inquiry,
The Great Gatsby represents a timeless narrative of racial passing."
The arguments raised in
The Tragic Black Buck turn American literary classics upside down and inside
out, highlighting nuances and exposing hidden meanings of black
individuals “passing” for white in literary contexts. Beyond
analyzing
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
The Great Gatsby,
this book also examines Charles Waddell Chesnutt's
The
House Behind the Cedars, William Faulkner's
Light
in August, and James Weldon Johnson's
The
Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man.
Through mounting evidence, Dr. Thompson
asserts that black individuals successfully assuming a white
identity represent a paradox, in that passing for white
exemplifies a challenge to the philosophy of biological white
supremacy, while denying blackness.
Racial passing is a phenomenon that continues
to evolve within our society. Questions about what constitutes
“blackness” and “whiteness” dominant pop culture while
movies like Nicole Kidman’s and Anthony Hopkins’, The Human
Stain, demonstrate America’s continued interest in the
historical roots of passing. In writing about this topic, Dr.
Thompson opens the door to new ways at looking at the confines
of race.
The Tragic Black Buck will spark
debate, challenge ideals, and change the way people read, all
the while fostering renewed interest in classic American
literature.
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Carlyle Van
Thompson’s study of black maleness as forms of mask and
masquerade is brilliantly driving and fresh in its exploration
of novels we thought we knew well. Boldest of all is Professor
Thompson’s discernment of the “black buck” standing behind
the flashy white exteriors of Jay Gatsby; but every chapter here
has its audacious new findings.
The Tragic Black Buck will
change the way we read canonical American literature as well as
the current American scene, where masking and double-masking
seem to define so much in our national identities. This book is
a triumph. --Robert G. O’Meally,
Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative
Literature, Columbia University
The Tragic Black Buck is a worthy successor to the sort of imaginative
literary reconstruction initiated in Toni Morrison’s
Playing
in the Dark. Professor Thompson shows us in lucid fashion
how white and black identities are never the sole possession of
black and white people. Blackness and whiteness are created out
of the complex and intricate interplay between cultural, racial,
and social forces that are larger than a fastidiously bi-polar
paradigm suggests.--Michael Eric Dyson,
Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities and African-American
Studies, the University of Pennsylvania * * *
* * Carlyle Van Thompson is Associate
Professor of African American and American Literature at Medgar
Evers College, the City University of New York. He received his
Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia
University. Dr. Thompson is the chairperson of the Department of
Languages, Literature, and Philosophy. He has published
scholarly articles on the works of Toni Morrison, Ernest J.
Gaines, Nella Larsen, and Charles Waddell Chesnutt. Thompson is
also the editor of the AEating
the Black Body: Miscegenation As Sexual Consumption in African
American Literature And Culture series
published by Peter Lang.
Carlyle Van Thompson, Ph.D., Associate
Professor of English and Chairperson / Medgar Evers College,
CUNY / 1650 Bedford Avenue / Brooklyn, New York 11225
718-270-4945* * *
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Bill Moyers and James Cone (Interview) /
A Conversation with James Cone
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John
Coltrane, "Alabama" /
Kalamu ya Salaam, "Alabama"
/
A Love Supreme
A Blues for the Birmingham Four
/ Eulogy for the Young Victims
/ Six Dead After Church
Bombing
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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 |
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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 |
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update 21 May 2010
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