Bibliograph

Black mirror, the cultural contradictions of American racism, Eric Lott

Type

Label

Black mirror, the cultural contradictions of American racism, Eric Lott

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-249) and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Black mirror

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

982089197

Responsibility statement

Eric Lott

Sub title

the cultural contradictions of American racism

Summary

Black Mirror explores the ways U.S. cultural institutions--classic American literature, Hollywood film, pop musical artistry, venturesome social commentary--have relied insistently and repeatedly on racial symbolic capital, including and above all blackface, to reproduce white cultural dominance. In the process these forms have threatened to betray the racial hegemony that generated them and that they exist in order to maintain. Hence the subtitle, The Cultural Contradictions of American Racism. In a series of chapters addressing such arts and artists as Mark Twain, film noir, Joni Mitchell, Elvis impersonators, Bob Dylan, and Barack Obama, Black Mirror locates the symbolic surplus value that accrues to white cultural producers and institutions whenever they traffic in "blackness"--A political economy of the sign that can sometimes surprise us (not least by producing a black president).--, Provided by publisher

Table Of Contents

Black mirror: states of fantasy and symbolic surplus value -- Our blackface America: Mr. Clemens and Jim Crow -- The mirror has two faces: white ethnic semi-mojo -- House of mirrors: the whiteness of film noir -- White like me: racial trans and the culture of civil rights -- Tar baby and the great white wonder: Joni Mitchell's pimp game -- All the king's men: Elvis impersonators and white working-class masculinity -- Just like Jack Frost's blues: masking and melancholia in Bob Dylan's 'Love and theft'

Classification