CiteULike: Tag african-american

Signifying As a Scaffold for Literary Interpretation: The Pedagogical Implications of an African American Discourse Genre (Ncte Research Report)

Carol Lee — 2005-11-19T20:29:54-00:00

Mathematics Success and Failure Among African-American Youth: The Roles of Sociohistorical Context, Community Forces, School Influence, and Individual ... Mathematical Thinking and Learning Series)

Danny Martin — 2006-12-03T02:42:17-00:00

(01 January 2000)

<div>No matter how mathematics achievement and persistence are measured, African Americans seem to lag behind their peers. This state of affairs is typically explained in terms of student ability, family background, differential treatment by teachers, and biased curricula. But what can explain disproportionately poor performance and persistence of African-American students who clearly possess the ability to do well, who come from varied family and socioeconomic backgrounds, who are taught by caring and concerned teachers, and who learn mathematics in the context of a reform-oriented mathematics curriculum? And, why do some African-American students succeed in mathematics when underachievement is the norm among their fellow students? Danny Martin addresses these questions in Mathematics Success and Failure Among African-American Youth, the results of a year-long ethnographic and observational study of African-American students and their parents and teachers. Mathematics Success and Failure Among African-American Youth goes beyond the conventional explanations of ability, socioeconomic status, differential treatment, and biased curricula to consider the effects of history, community, and peers--and the individual agency that allows some students to succeed despite these influences. Martin's analysis suggests that prior studies of mathematics achievement and persistence among African Americans have failed to link sociohistorical, community, school, and intrapersonal forces in sufficiently meaningful ways, and that they suffer from theoretical and methodological limitations that hinder the ability of mathematics educators to reverse the negative achievement and persistence trends that continue to afflict African-American students. The analyses and findings offered in Martin's book lead to exciting implications for future research and intervention efforts concerning African-American students--and other students for whom history and context play an important role. This book will be useful and informative to many groups: mathematics education researchers, education researchers interested in the social context of learning and teaching, policymakers, preservice and in-service teachers, students, parents, and community advocates. It will also be of interest to readers concerned with multicultural education, cross-cultural studies of mathematics learning, sociology of education, Black Studies, and issues of underrepresentation in science and mathematics.</div>

Let the sisters speak: understanding information technology from the standpoint of the 'other'

Lynette Kvasny — 2007-08-07T21:02:24-00:00

SIGMIS Database, Vol. 37, No. 4. (2006), pp. 13-25.

Cool Pose : The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America

Richard Majors — 2008-01-03T21:09:10-00:00

(01 August 1993)

The Construction of Black Masculinity: White Supremacy Now and Then

Abby Ferber — 2007-09-14T20:14:11-00:00

Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol. 31, No. 1. (1 February 2007), pp. 11-24.

How can a White supremacist nation, which subjects Black men to ongoing racism and demonization, at the same time admire and worship Black men as athletes? The author argues that key elements of White supremacy and the new racism are reinforced by popular representations of Black male athletes. In viewing far-Right White supremacist and sports cultures, two sites representing seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum of contemporary racism, the author examines the continuing significance of the historical image of the buck and the obsession with controlling and "taming" Black male bodies. The author examines four common themes that permeate the contemporary construction of Black masculinity and work to justify color-blind racism and inequality: a continued emphasis on Black bodies as inherently aggressive, hypersexual, and violent; concern with taming and controlling Black males; inequality depicted as a product of a deficient Black culture; and the naturalization of White supremacy and White male superiority. 10.1177/0193723506296829

Revolt of the White Athlete: Race, Media and the Emergence of Extreme Athlete in America (Intersections in Communications and Culture)

Kyle Kusz — 2008-06-12T17:31:46-00:00

Informed by whiteness studies, Kyle Kusz’s groundbreaking book examines the role that sport discourses play in reproducing a central, normative, and superior position for white masculinity in American culture and society at the turn of the twenty-first century. Specifically, Kusz illuminates how the American sports media—through cover stories detailing the so-called disappearance of the white (male) athlete in American sports or the rise of extreme sports—produced a set of contradictory images of white masculinity as victimized and unprivileged, yet superior and squarely centered in American culture, that shaped and were shaped by a broader cultural struggle to re- secure white male privilege.

Black Skins, Black Masks or "The Return of the White Negro": Race, Masculinity, and the Public Personas of Dennis Rodman and RuPaul

Zine Magubane — 2007-09-21T00:45:26-00:00

Men and Masculinities, Vol. 4, No. 3. (1 January 2002), pp. 233-257.

This article explores the meanings behind the public personae of two "White Negroes"--Dennis Rodman and RuPaul. It argues that they are examples of blackface minstrelsy in the post-Fordist age. The article draws the connection between minstrelsy of the nineteenth century and the performances of Rodman and RuPaul in the twentieth century by demonstrating that their performances, like minstrelsy, worked to help mask tensions within and between classes while managing desires for racial domination and the anxieties provoked by racial envy. The article concludes by exploring how both artists attempt to exert their agency rather than simply remaining the passive object of the white male gaze and the tensions that ensue. 10.1177/1097184X02004003002

Prototype: In search of the perfect Senegalese basketball physique

Michael Ralph — 2007-09-14T20:05:11-00:00

International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. 24, No. 2. (2007), pp. 238-263.

In this essay I discuss some aspects of the Senegalese basketball complex: agents, scouts, coaches, and trainers that operate within this domain and who obsess over the physical characteristics they believe will translate into success for the players they seek to recruit. They consider Senegal to be an especially fertile terrain for discovering new talent. These players are allegedly uncorrupted by the greed that characterizes sport in its most financially lucrative locales. And yet, by combining ethnographic detail with an article that appeared in ESPN Magazine, I discern parallels with that well-known modern discourse concerning the ‘noble savage,’ who this time is imagined as a fitting antidote, not to the rapid advance of modern capitalism but to the high stakes competition that defines neoliberal market mechanisms. Basketball experts abstract from the personal histories of Senegalese players to circulate stereotypes with profound implications for the possibilities these athletes may pursue.

Basketball Jones: America, above the Rim (Fast Track)

Sohail Daulatzai — 2007-09-19T22:17:31-00:00

(01 September 2000)

It began with Magic, Bird, and Dr. J. Then came Michael. The Dream Team. The WNBA. And, most recently, "Spree" Latrell Sprewell--American Dream or American Nightmare?--the embodiment of everything many believe is wrong--and others believe is exciting--about the game. Today, despite the NBA strike, despite home run derbies, despite football's headlock on network television ratings, despite the much-heralded return of baseball, basketball has assumed a role in American culture and consciousness impossible to imagine 20 years ago, when arenas were empty and the NBA finals were broadcast via tape delay in the wee hours. So what happened? How did a "black sport," plagued by drug scandal and decimated by white flight, come to achieve such prominence? What are the subtle and not-so-subtle racial codes that define how the game is played and perceived, and the reception of its high-profile stars? What does the shift in popularity from the predominantly white, working-class ethos of baseball to the black, urban ethos of basketball suggest about contemporary life in America? What linkages exist between basketball and hip-hop culture and how did these develop? How has the arrival of women on the scene changed the equation? Bringing together journalists, cultural critics, and academics, this wide-ranging anthology has something for everyone, from hard-core fan to casual observer. Contributors: Todd Boyd, Kenneth L. Shropshire, Gerald Early, James Peterson, Susan J. Rayl, Davis W. Houck, Mark Conrad, Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Earl Smith, Sohail Daulatzi, Larry Platt, Tina Sloan Green, Alpha Alexander, Tara McPherson, Aaron Baker.

Be like Mike?: Michael Jordan and the pedagogy of desire

Michael Dyson — 2008-01-17T20:37:06-00:00

Cultural Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1. (1993), pp. 64-72.

Nike's Communication with Black Audiences: A Sociological Analysis of Advertising Effectiveness via Symbolic Interactionism

Ketra Armstrong — 2007-09-14T22:21:24-00:00

Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol. 23, No. 3. (1 August 1999), pp. 266-286.

An increase in the size and resources of the Black consumer market has prompted many organizations to increase their understanding of the challenges of devising marketing communications to appeal to Black consumers. The influence of culture on communication strategies aimed at ethnic groups has long been realized by marketers and advertising professionals. However, what remains a challenge is the means of adapting an effective (yet nonoffensive) culturally-based approach of marketing communication. Given the salience of sport to Blacks, this is a challenge that sport organizations should also address as they devise ways of advertising and communicating sport products and services to Black consumers. This article will employ the tenets of symbolic interactionism, to analyze Nike's advertisements as vehicles to communicate with Black audiences. 10.1177/0193723599233003

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism

Patricia Collins — 2007-09-19T22:49:19-00:00

(14 July 2005)

Caricatures of Black sexuality saturate American popular culture in bootylicious rap videos and paternity tests on the Jerry Springer show. Blacks have been cast as hypersexual animals in Western culture since a scantily clad "Hottentot Venus" was displayed in a cage in Paris in the 1800s. In Black Sexual Politics, one of America's most influential writers on race and gender explores how images of Black sexuality have been used to maintain the color line and how they threaten to spread a new brand of racism around the world today. The ideal of pure white womanhood, Collins argues, required the invention of hot-blooded Latinas, exotic Suzy Wongs, and wanton jezebels--images that persist in the media today in everything from animal-skin bikinis to the creation of the "welfare mom." Men confront a similar bias in a society that defines African American males as drug dealers, brutish athletes, irresponsible fathers, and rapists. Collins dissects the widespread impact of these distorted messages as she explores African American love relationships, sex in youth culture, interracial romance, sexual violence, and HIV/AIDS. A revolutionary work that touches the intimate and public lives of all African Americans, Black Sexual Politics brilliantly illuminates the subtle interplay of race, sex, and politics in American culture today.

Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made

David Halberstam — 2008-05-11T02:13:56-00:00

(01 February 2000)

From The Breaks of the Game to Summer of '49, David Halberstam has brought the perspective of a great historian, the inside knowledge of a dogged sportswriter, and the love of a fan to bear on some of the most mythic players and teams in the annals of American sport. With Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls he has given himself his greatest challenge and produced his greatest triumph. In Playing for Keeps, David Halberstam takes the first full measure of Michael Jordan's epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the book chronicles the forces in Jordan's life that have shaped him into history's greatest basketball player and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world. One of the finest nonfiction writers in any lineup, Halberstam likes to alternate what he's deemed his serious work--books like The Best and the Brightest, The Fifties, and The Children--with his sporting interludes, though in his hands, sports are much, much more than fun and games. Books like The Breaks of the Game and October 1964 use sports as a prism. Culture, race, society, and history are all filtered through it, and Halberstam refocuses--and interprets--what comes out the other side. That he would now turn his considerable abilities to exploring Michael Jordan is not surprising. Halberstam loves hoops, and Jordan not only defines the game, he defines an era. His fame crosses international borders as easily as he dribbles past half-court lines. In focusing on Jordan--as athlete and force of nature--and his osmosis from a young hoop dreamer to product pitchman to the world, Halberstam is really examining intangibles like myth and legend, celebrity and fame, wealth and image, excellence and genius, race and style, the qualities of heroism and the pursuit of perfection. "That there had been even one Michael Jordan seemed in retrospect something of a genetic fluke," he writes, "and the idea that anyone would arrive in so short a span of time and do what he did both on and off the court seemed highly unlikely." But the phenomenon that is Jordan did just that. Understanding, even admiring, what he did, how he did it, and what it means in a basketball context and a larger one is Halberstam's goal, and, despite Jordan's lack of cooperation--or maybe because of it--Halberstam's muscular prose and thinking scores powerfully. Yet, there is a wistfulness, in the end, to Playing for Keeps; the game doesn't seem as much fun and collegial as it used to for Halberstam, and Jordan, great as he may be, emerges with less of the historic grace exhibited by Jackie Robinson, Ali, and Arthur Ashe than with a quality that Halberstam deems the athlete-explorer "in terms of going beyond previously accepted limits of what was humanly possible, and somehow by dint of physical excellence and unmatched willpower, pushing those limits forward that much more." Dazzling, certainly, but not necessarily heroic. Playing for Keeps is also available on audiocassette. --Jeff Silverman

Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture

Patricia Turner — 2008-03-27T21:26:56-00:00

(30 November 2002)

Orderly and Disorderly Structures: Why Church and Sports Appeal to Black Americans and Theatre does not

Rhett Jones — 2007-08-27T20:26:18-00:00

Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 25, No. 1. (1991), pp. 43-52.

`GOOD BLACKS' AND `BAD BLACKS': Media Constructions of African-American Athletes in Canadian Basketball

Brian Wilson — 2007-09-21T00:22:02-00:00

International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 32, No. 2. (1 June 1997), pp. 177-189.

This paper analyses portrayals of African-American basketball players in the Toronto media. It was found that the media tended to stereotype African-Americans as either `good' or `bad' blacks, although there were oscillating variations on this theme. Suggestions are made for conducting similar research in other contexts. 10.1177/101269097032002005

The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots And Modern Literary Branches

Bernard Bell — 2007-10-13T20:19:37-00:00

(30 December 2004)

In 1987 Bernard W. Bell published "The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition," a comprehensive interpretive history of more than 150 novels written by African Americans from 1853 to 1983. The book won the Distinguished Scholarship Award of the College Language Association and was reprinted five times. Now Bell has produced a new volume that serves as a sequel and companion to the earlier work, expanding the coverage to 2001. Bell also refines and extends his interpretive model for reading texts by African American writers, a model based on the vernacular forms of expression of his childhood, the literary theories of Ralph Ellison, and the writings on double-consciousness of W.E.B. Du Bois. The book begins with a personal essay in which Bell traces the evolution of his thinking about sociohistorical and sociocultural approaches to literature. He goes on to apply these approaches to the work of hundreds of black novelists whose work has been published since 1853. His primary focus, however, is on some forty novels and romances published between 1983 and 2001, including works by Gayl Jones, Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Albert Murray, Gloria Naylor, Al Young, David Bradley, Leon Forrest, and Charles Johnson, as well as the neo-Black Aesthetic novelists Nathaniel Mackey, Trey Ellis, Percival L. Everett, and Colson Whitehead. In acknowledging the diversity of the tradition of the novel, Bell also examines the science fiction of Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler, the gay novels of E. Lynn Harris, Larry Duplechan, and Randall Kenan, and the detective narratives of Barbara Neely and Walter Mosley. The result is a book of impressive scope and accomplishment--an essential work for any serious student of African American literature.

All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies

2007-09-28T19:47:43-00:00

(01 February 1982)

This compliation of essays lays down the curricular and research agenda for the establishment of a Black Women's Studies program in the academy. It weaves personal narrative, literary criticism, and empirical analysis which cogently argues that Black Studies and Women's Studies in academia do not adequately address the multiple consciousness of Black women through discourses on racism, sexism, classism, and sexuality. The authors of the various articles articulate the need to look at Black women's lives as multi-faceted and complex, neither wholly positive or negative. The title "All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men,But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies" brilliantly captures the dilemmas that Black women face in higher education and the wider negation of their experiences as Black people and as women. The book delivers an historical examination of the Black Women's Studies movement that began in the early 1970's with the formation of the Combahee River Collective, a black feminist organization and the National Black Feminist Organization. It also pushes for the development of a Black Women's Studies program that reaches out beyond the halls of academe and situates its curricular and research agenda in political and economic organizing on behalf of Black women of all educational and economic classes.

Black Male-Female Relationships: Some Observations

Osei-Mensah Aborampah — 2007-10-13T11:36:07-00:00

Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3. (March 1989), pp. 320-342.

This article examines the relationships that exist between black females and black males and offers suggestions as to how the rich religious traditions and familial principles that undergird the black heritage can be re-created and adapted for use by black children today and in the years to come. This effort has become necessary in light of the increased sociological attention given to the problems that exist in black male-black female relationships and the "crisis" that exists within the black family today. Overall there seems to be general agreement about the existence of unhealthy conflicts between black males and black females. Problems in the relationships are largely discussed in terms of such factors as institutionalized racism and sexism, the scarcity of black men, the dating game on the part of both black men and women, and the stresses and strains that confront individual partners in their day-to-day activities. This study briefly discusses these explanatory variables and suggests ways by which relationships between black males and black females can be improved, beginning from the formative years of the black child.

Social Structure and Black Family Life: An Analysis of Current Trends

Robert Staples — 2007-10-12T19:40:29-00:00

Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3. (1987), pp. 267-286.

This article discusses black families and their problems from a historical and socio-political point of view.

The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition

Bernard Bell — 2007-09-28T09:10:31-00:00

(28 August 1987)

This study is a strong addition to the growing body of scholarly analysis examining the Afro-American contribution. Proceeding chronologically from William Wells Brown's Clotel (1853) to experimental novels of the 1980s, Bell comments on more than 150 works, with close readings of 41 novelists. His remarks are framed by an inquiry into the distinctive elements of Afro-American fiction.

Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women

2007-09-28T13:47:21-00:00

(31 December 1989)

A collection of writings by and about black women. Most of the essays in this volume were originally presented at a 1987 symposium at Rutgers University. The contributors include Abena P.A. Busia, Barbara Christian, Mae Gwendolyn Henderson and Hortense J. Spillers. They discuss black feminist theory and criticism and the work of such writers as Audre Lorde and Paule Marshall.

Race, Class and Urban Poverty: A Rejoinder

William Wilson — 2007-09-17T19:14:52-00:00

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 26, No. 6. (November 2003), pp. 1096-1114.

In this article I discuss the major arguments in three of my books that are the focus of attention in this special issue. The Declining Significance of Race (1978, 2nd edn 1980), The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), and When Work Disappears (1996). This discussion serves as the backdrop for my rejoinder to the points made in the preceding articles, including those on the relative significance of race and class, social isolation, the concept ‘ghetto’, complexity of inner-city family life, and affirmative action. I conclude this article with some reflections on the plight of poor blacks and social policy in the United States.

Moorings and Metaphors: Figures of Culture and Gender in Black Women's Literature

Karla Holloway — 2007-10-08T17:46:30-00:00

(30 April 1992)

Analysis of Naylor's use of an ancestral figure to link gender, culture, and language in her first three novels.

The Critical Response to Gloria Naylor

2007-10-02T16:03:27-00:00

(30 September 1997)

As the author of The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, Mama Day, and Bailey's Cafe, Gloria Naylor is highly respected as one of the most important contemporary African American women writers. Her works are widely read and have been the subject of increasing amounts of scholarly attention. This volume provides comprehensive coverage of the critical response to her works. The book is divided into sections devoted to each of Naylor's novels. Within each section, seminal articles and book chapters comment on her writing. Special attention is given to African American and feminist perspectives on her canon. In addition, many of the essays discuss the relationship of Naylor's novels to the works of classical authors such as Chaucer, Dante, and Shakespeare, and to significant modern writers. A balance of new and previously published material provides a thoughtful overview of the reception of her works. A thorough introductory essay discusses Naylor's place in American literature and the themes she treats throughout her novels. A chronology summarizes the principal events in her life and career, and a substantial bibliography lists works for further reading. A special feature is an exclusive interview with Naylor, in which she discusses such topics as the role of the politics of gender in her writings, her treatment of women, the relationship between art and morality, her views on race relations, her thoughts on the future of literature and on her most recent projects, and the manner in which she works and writes.

Black Literature in White America

Berndt Ostendorf — 2007-09-28T10:36:07-00:00

(28 August 1982)

The most encompassing thesis of this book on black literature is that American culture is a hybrid - full of contradictions - which owes its vitality to a long history of imitation, travesty, parody and productive misunderstanding between its various cultures. While socially and politically there has been a strong pressure towards assimilation, in culture there has been an increasing 'ethnification'. In this process the relationship between black and white AMerica has been particularly significant for the development of an American vernacular style. This book pays attention to key metaphors and key issues of the black cultural experience in America. The word 'literature' in the title should be taken in a catholic and comprehensive sense. As every text is part of a culture, the culture is part of the text.

New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism

Deborah Mcdowell — 2007-10-10T20:29:50-00:00

Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 14, No. 4. (Winter 1980), pp. 153-159.

An essay by McDowell on black feminist criticism.

Changes in Black Family Structure: The Conflict between Family Ideology and Structural Conditions

Robert Staples — 2007-10-13T08:31:45-00:00

Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 47, No. 4. (November 1985), pp. 1005-1013.

The family ideology of black Americans is compared with actual family arrangements and lifestyles. Dissonance between the two is explained by the intervention of structural conditions that prevent the fulfillment of normative familial roles by black males. Exchange theory is used to explain the conflict between family ideology and structural conditions: in general, black women fail to marry or remain married when the costs outweigh the benefits of such an arrangement.

Gloria Naylor: Critical Perspectives Past And Present

2007-10-01T13:41:21-00:00

(01 October 1993)

In the history of the African-American literary tradition, perhaps no author has been immersed in the formal history of that tradition than Gloria Naylor. As an undergraduate student of Afro-American literature at Brooklyn College and a graduate student of Afro-American studies at Yale, Naylor has analyzed the works of her male and female antecedents in a manner that was impossible before the late seventies. And, while she is a citizen of the republic of literature in the broadest and most cosmopolitan sense, her work suggest formal linkage to that of Ann Petry, James Baldwin, and, more recently, Toni Morrison. This collection of reviews and critical essays deal with Naylor's first three or four novels, concentrating on The Women of Brewster Place.

The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy

William Wilson — 2007-09-29T09:20:57-00:00

(30 August 1987)

Ever since Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous study of the black family in 1965, policymakers have debated the relative importance of the poorest Americans. William Julius Wilson's study remains the most eloquent and tightly argued analysis of this great dilemma of family, community, race, and class. One of the many merits of William Julius Wilson's study is its sensitive and powerful argument that cultural and economic structures matter. Wilson looks at the plight of the most desperate group of Americans, sometimes called the "underclass," and finds that the causal arrows never lead in one direction.

Being and Race: Black Writing Since 1970

Charles Johnson — 2007-10-10T18:33:55-00:00

(1988), pp. 94-118.

A book on contemporary black writing since 1970, including a chapter on black women's writing.

The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory

2007-10-10T20:14:11-00:00

(12 May 1985)

A book of essays on feminist criticism.

Render Me My Song: African American Women Writers from Slavery to the Present

Sandi Russell — 2007-09-28T12:59:03-00:00

(15 January 1991)

This essential text for newcomers and experts alike combines a broad survey of African American women's writing with a vivid critique by Sandi Russell, inspired by her discovery of her own cultural inheritance. This was the first book to focus on the full scope of African American women's writing and creativity. It has now been completely revised and is reissued with a new introduction. Filling as it does the growing demand for critical work on black women's writing, it is particularly suited to undergraduate courses in literature, women's studies and American studies.

Black Literature and Literary Theory

2007-09-28T10:07:58-00:00

(26 September 1984)

"Black Literature and Literary Theory is of the first importance, not only for scholars of black literature, but also for literary critics and theorists in the traditional fields of Western literature." W. Mitchell, University of Chicago

Reading Rape: The Rhetoric of Sexual Violence in American Literature and Culture, 1790-1990

Sabine Sielke — 2007-10-08T11:42:51-00:00

(01 May 2002), pp. 150-159.

Reading Rape examines how American culture talks about sexual violence and explains why, in the latter twentieth century, rape achieved such significance as a trope of power relations. Through attentive readings of a wide range of literary and cultural representations of sexual assault - from antebellum seduction narratives and "realist" representations of rape in nineteenth-century novels to Deliverance, American Psycho, and contemporary feminist accounts - Sabine Sielke traces the evolution of a specifically American rhetoric of rape. She considers the kinds of cultural work that this rhetoric has performed and finds that rape has been an insistent figure for a range of social, political, and economic issues. Sielke argues that the representation of rape has been a major force in the cultural construction of sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and indeed national identity. At the same time, her acute analyses of both canonical and lesser-known texts explore the complex anxieties that motivate such constructions and their function within the wider cultural imagination. Provoked in part by contemporary feminist criticism, Reading Rape also challenges feminist positions on sexual violence by interrogating them as part of the history in which rape has been a convenient and conventional albeit troubling trope for other concerns and conflicts. This book teaches us what we talk about when we talk about rape. And what we're talking about is often something else entirely: power, money, social change, difference, and identity.

"I Will Wear No Chain!": A Social History of African American Males

Christopher Booker — 2007-09-29T08:31:23-00:00

(30 September 2000)

This volume traces the social history of African American men from the days of slavery to the present, focusing on their achievements, their changing image, and their role in American society. The author places the contemporary issue of Black men's disproportionate involvement with criminal justice within its social and historical context, while analyzing the most significant movements aiming to improve the status of Blacks in our society. The book's main thesis is that an ever-changing, yet ever-present, process of criminalization has entrapped Black men throughout history, thus creating a major barrier to their collective development. The topics discussed include the role of Blacks in the Civil War, Booker T. Washington, the Civil Rights movement, and the Million Man March.

American Fiction Since 1940

Tony Hilfer — 2007-10-12T15:27:32-00:00

(05 October 1992)

In this book Tony Hilfer offers a complete survey of postwar American fiction. He covers major figures such as Faulkner and McCullers in the early part of the period through to contemporary writers such as Bellow, Morrison and Updike. The text covers major modes and genres of writing in the period, from realist to postmodern metafiction and black humour, the fiction of social protext, women's writing and racial minority fiction. In addition, appendices and author biographies plus a full bibliography give the student essential background information. It is aimed at undergraduate courses in modern American literature (options covering American fiction are now widespread in English degree courses). American studies courses have an option covering American fiction.

An Interview with Gloria Naylor

Ethel Smith — 2007-10-01T23:07:57-00:00

Callaloo, Vol. 23, No. 4. (2000), pp. 1430-1439.

Smith's interview with Naylor.

The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide

2007-10-12T16:24:50-00:00

(30 November 2001)

Compared to the early decades of the 20th century, when scholarly writing on African Americans was limited to a few titles on slavery, Reconstruction, and African American migration, the last thirty years have witnessed an explosion of works on the African American experience. With the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s came an increasing demand for the study and teaching of African American history followed by the publication of increasing numbers of titles on African American life and history. This volume provides a comprehensive bibliographical and analytical guide to this growing body of literature as well as an analysis of how the study of African Americans has changed. In essays written by scholars from the fields of history, literature, religion, political science, sociology, psychology, music, and religion, the book spotlights the historiographical trends associated with the evolving study of African American life and history. Students and scholars, as well as general readers, will find the guide to be a useful tool in identifying secondary materials for study, class use, and scholarly research.

An Interview with Gloria Naylor

Charles Rowell — 2007-10-01T22:51:50-00:00

Callaloo, Vol. 20, No. 1. (1997), pp. 179-192.

Rowell's interview with Naylor.

Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980

Charles Murray — 2007-10-13T20:57:12-00:00

(26 November 1984)

With a new introduction by the author, this tenth anniversary edition of the classic book argues that the ambitious social programs of the Great Society designed to help the poor and disadvantaged often made things worse.

Black Families

2007-09-29T13:28:55-00:00

(01 November 1981)

Black Families is a highly readable and scholarly book that avoids the pitfalls of excessive romanticism by adhering to the objective spirit of scientific inquiry. A significant contribution to the knowledge base supporting social work practice. It should appear on the reading list of a wide range of courses, including courses in human behavior, social policy, and social research.

Bakhtin in African American Literary Theory

Dorothy Hale — 2007-10-08T20:39:58-00:00

ELH, Vol. 61, No. 2. (Summer 1994), pp. 445-471.

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass

Douglas Massey — 2007-10-13T20:45:04-00:00

(15 July 1993)

"During the 1970s and 1980s a word disappeared from the American vocabulary," begins American Apartheid ". . . That word was segregation." But the practice of segregation certainly has not disappeared, as Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton glaringly expose. One-third of all American blacks live in one of just 16 urban areas, in neighborhoods so racially segregated they have almost no chance at interracial contact. The authors argue that segregation - and disassocation from not only other cultures, but other ways of life - is at the root of many problems facing African-Americans today. This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities. American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation." The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities. As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.

The Structural Context of Novel Rights Claims: Southern Civil Rights Organizing, 1961-1966

Francesca Polletta — 2006-07-21T12:12:27-00:00

Theorists of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) have argued that the abstract, individualistic, and state-dependent character of rights makes them of dubious value for groups fighting for social change. Southern civil rights organizers in the early 1960s engaged in the kind of power-oriented strategy that CLS writers advocate in lieu of a rights-oriented one. However, the rights claims they made inside and outside courtrooms were essential to their political organizing efforts. Far from narrowing collective aspirations to the limits of the law, activists' extension of rights claims to the "unqualified" legitimated assaults on economic inequality, governmental decisionmaking in poverty programs, and the Vietnam War. What made possible this novel formulation was not only the multivalent character of rights but also key features of the social, political, and organizational contexts within which rights were advanced.

Origins of the Civil Rights Movements

Aldon Morris — 2006-07-21T12:05:13-00:00

(15 September 1986)

A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men's History and Masculinity, Vol. 1: "Manhood Rights": The Construction of Black Male History and Manhood, 1750-1870 (Blacks in the Diaspora)

Darlene Hine — 2005-12-14T05:10:58-00:00

(01 February 2000)

A Question of Manhood is the first anthology of historical studies focused on themes and issues central to the construction of Black masculinities. The editors identified these essays from among several hundred articles published in recent years in leading American history journals and academic periodicals.

The Afro-American Musical Legacy to 1800

Robert Stevenson — 2007-10-24T16:22:08-00:00

The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 4. (1968), pp. 475-502.

An Early Black-Music Concert from Spirituals to Swing

James Dugan — 2008-05-21T17:43:14-00:00

The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 2, No. 2. (1974), pp. 191-207.

Comprehensive evaluation of variability in nicotine metabolism and CYP2A6 polymorphic alleles in four ethnic populations.

M Nakajima — 2008-01-16T20:19:11-00:00

Clin Pharmacol Ther, Vol. 80, No. 3. (September 2006), pp. 282-297.

Human cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2A6 metabolizes nicotine to cotinine and is a possible modulator of nicotine addiction. Quantitative and qualitative differences in nicotine addiction have been observed between ethnic groups. However, there are few data on the ethnic influences of the CYP2A6-nicotine metabolism relationship, particularly with regard to black subjects. We determined the nicotine metabolism and CYP2A6 genotype in 176 white subjects and 160 black subjects, comparing them with our previous data from 209 Korean subjects and 92 Japanese subjects. Large interindividual differences were observed in the cotinine/nicotine ratios in plasma calculated as an index of nicotine metabolism in white subjects (range, 0.6-36.5) and in black subjects (range, 0.9-30.4). No ethnic difference in the metabolic ratio was observed among white subjects (mean, 7.2 +/- 5.0), black subjects (mean, 7.1 +/- 4.7), and Korean subjects (mean, 8.7 +/- 11.9), whereas Japanese subjects showed a significantly (P < .005) lower metabolic ratio (mean, 3.8 +/- 3.1) compared with the other populations. Women showed significantly (P < .05) higher metabolic ratios than men in the black population (8.0 +/- 5.3 versus 6.0 +/- 3.7). Obvious ethnic differences in the CYP2A6 alleles were observed among these 4 populations. The combined frequencies of the alleles lacking or showing reduced enzymatic activity (CYP2A6*2, CYP2A6*4, CYP2A6*5, CYP2A6*7, CYP2A6*9, CYP2A6*10, CYP2A6*11, CYP2A6*17, CYP2A6*19, and CYP2A6*20) were 9.1%, 21.9%, 42.9%, and 50.5% in white, black, Korean, and Japanese subjects, respectively. These CYP2A6 alleles were associated with reduced nicotine metabolism. Among the homozygotes of CYP2A6*1, interindividual and ethnic differences in the metabolic ratio were still observed. Thus some factors other than genetic ones might also contribute to the interindividual and ethnic differences. This comprehensive study of 4 populations extends our understanding of nicotine metabolism and the impact of genetic polymorphisms of the CYP2A6 gene.