The White African American Body: A Cultural and Literary Exploration

Portada
Rutgers University Press, 2002 - 221 páginas

Blacks with white skin. Since colonial times, showmen have exhibited the bodies of African Americans with white or gradually whitening skin in taverns, dime museums, and circus sideshows. The term "white Negro" has served to describe an individual born with albinism as well as those who have vitiligo, a disorder that robs the skin of its pigment in ever-growing patches. In The White African American Body, Charles D. Martin examines the proliferation of the image of the white Negro in American popular culture, from the late eighteenth century to the present day.

This enigmatic figure highlights the folly of the belief in immutable racial differences. If skin is a race marker, what does it mean for blacks literally to be white? What does this say not only about blacks but also about whites? Scientists have probed this mystery, philosophers have pondered its meaning, and artists have profited from the sale of images of these puzzling figures.

Lavishly illustratedwith many rarely seen photographsThe White African American Body shows how the white Negro occupied, and still occupies, the precarious position between white and black, and how this figure remains resilient in American culture.

Dentro del libro

Páginas seleccionadas

Contenido

THE WHITE NEGRO IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC
19
BARNUMS LEOPARD BOY The Reign of
49
THE DOUBLE BIND OF THE ALBINO Less
87
A BETTER SKIN Scenes from
127
WHITE NEGROES LEOPARD BOYS
162
REQUIEM FOR A WIGGER
181
Index
215
Derechos de autor

Otras ediciones - Ver todas

Términos y frases comunes

Acerca del autor (2002)

Charles D. Martin teaches American literature at Florida State University.

Información bibliográfica