Black folklore and the politics of racial representation

Resource Information

The work Black folklore and the politics of racial representation represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in DC Public Library System. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Black folklore and the politics of racial representation

Statement of responsibility

Shirley Moody-Turner

Creator

• Moody-Turner, Shirley

Subject

• African Americans -- Folklore
• African Americans -- Intellectual life
• African Americans -- Race identity
• African Americans in literature
• American literature -- African American authors | History and criticism
• Folklore in literature
• Literature and folklore -- United States
• Race -- Social aspects -- United States
• African Americans -- Folklore

Genre

• Folklore

Language

eng

Summary

"Before the innovative work of Zora Neale Hurston, folklorists from the Hampton Institute collected, studied, and wrote about African American folklore. Like Hurston, these folklorists worked within but also beyond the bounds of white mainstream institutions. They often called into question the meaning of the very folklore projects in which they were engaged. Shirley Moddy-Turner analyzes this output, along with the contributions of a disparate group of African American authors and scholars. She explores how black authors and folklorists were active participants--rather than passive observers--in conversations about the politics of representing black folklore. Examining literary texts, folklore documents, and cultural performances, legal discourse, and political rhetoric, Black Folklore and the Politics of Racial Representation demonstrates how folklore studies became a battleground across which issues of racial identity and difference were asserted and debated at the turn of the twentieth century. The study is framed by two questions of historical and continuing import. What role have representations of black folklore played in constructing racial identity? And, how have those ideas impacted the way African Americans think about and creatively engage black traditions? Moody-Turner renders established historical facts in a new light and context, taking figures we thought we knew--such as Charles Chesnutt, Anna Julia Cooper, and paul Laurence Dunbar--and recasting their place in African American intellectual and cultural history" --

Member of

• Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

398.2089/96073

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

GR111.A47

LC item number

M66 2013

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies