Postracial America?

An Interdisciplinary Study

Edited by Vincent L. Stephens and Anthony Stewart - Contributions by Márcia Agustini; Joshua Brewer; Mary Jo McCloskey; Cherise A. Pollard; Whitney Shepard; Éva Tettenborn; Spring Ulmer and James Ziegler

The concept of a “postracial” America —the dream of a nation beyond race — has attracted much attention over the course of the presidency of Barack Obama, suggesting that this idea is peculiar to the contemporary moment alone. Postracial America? An Interdisciplinary Study attempts to broaden the application of this idea by situating it in contexts that demonstrate how the idea of the postracial has been with America since its founding and will continue to be long after the Obama administration’s term ends. The chapters in this volume explore the idea of the postracial in the United States through a variety of critical lenses, including film studies; literature; aesthetics and conceptual thinking; politics; media representations; race in relation to gender, identity, and sexuality; and personal experiences. Through this diverse interdisciplinary exploration, this collection skeptically weighs the implications of holding up a postracial culture as an admirable goal for the United States.

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 220 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-61148-779-4 • Hardback • November 2016 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-61148-781-7 • Paperback • November 2019 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-61148-780-0 • eBook • November 2016 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: The Griot Project Book Series

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, Literary Criticism / American / African American, Social Science / American Studies

Postracial America?

An Interdisciplinary Study

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

The concept of a “postracial” America —the dream of a nation beyond race — has attracted much attention over the course of the presidency of Barack Obama, suggesting that this idea is peculiar to the contemporary moment alone. Postracial America? An Interdisciplinary Study attempts to broaden the application of this idea by situating it in contexts that demonstrate how the idea of the postracial has been with America since its founding and will continue to be long after the Obama administration’s term ends. The chapters in this volume explore the idea of the postracial in the United States through a variety of critical lenses, including film studies; literature; aesthetics and conceptual thinking; politics; media representations; race in relation to gender, identity, and sexuality; and personal experiences. Through this diverse interdisciplinary exploration, this collection skeptically weighs the implications of holding up a postracial culture as an admirable goal for the United States.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 220 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-61148-779-4 • Hardback • November 2016 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-61148-781-7 • Paperback • November 2019 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-61148-780-0 • eBook • November 2016 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: The Griot Project Book Series

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, Literary Criticism / American / African American, Social Science / American Studies

Author

Vincent Stephens is the director of the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity at Dickinson College.
Anthony Stewart is professor of English at Bucknell University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Foreword byCarmen Gillespie
Introduction: The Postracial—The General and the ParticularsbyVincent Stephens and Anthony Stewart
Part I. Whose Ideal? The History and the Fiction of Postraciality
Chapter 1: Frederick Douglass Confronts the Post-Slavery Argument: Regarding Some Origins of the Postracial Idea byÉva Tettenborn
Chapter 2: Black Is Red All Over Again: The Returns of Cold War Anticommunist Rhetoricby James Zeigler
Chapter 3: College Students Counter the Postracial Narrative by Mary Jo McCloskey
Chapter 4: The Death of Race: Living Posthumously in a Postracial Societyby Whitney Shepard
Chapter 5: Against “Lynch Law” in the Age of Extrajudicial Killing and War Crimes by Spring Ulmer
Part II. Applying and Misapplying the Postracial
Chapter 6: Are We the “Future Americans”? Charles Chesnutt Anticipates a Postracial American Society by Cherise A. Pollard
Chapter 7: The Desire for the End of Race: Barthes, Everett, and the Belief in the Postracialby Anthony Stewart
Chapter 8: Guns on the Border of Black and Queer: Firearms and Redemption Schemes in Tarantino’s Pulp Fictionby Joshua Brewer
Chapter 9: Postracism in Heidi W. Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: Racial Identity and the New Universal Subjectby Márcia C. Agustini
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors