Discourse Journal For Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, 2013
No pre-emancipation text by an African-American has enjoyed as much currency as Frederick Douglas... more No pre-emancipation text by an African-American has enjoyed as much currency as Frederick Douglass's 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Fredeňck Douglass , An American Slave, Written by Himself Long considered the paradigm text of African-American slave identity, Douglass's Narrative was a forceful testament for the abolition movement and for African-American literary and historical consciousness. Douglass commandeered American myths of selfreliance and heroic rebellion to describe his escape from slavery; in this way, he extended symbolic citizenship to African-Americans (Andrews 166). His Narrative modeled "a coherent self which subsequent generations could use as a point of origin of written AfroAmerican discourse and subjectivity" (Cunningham 109). Deemed the "prototypical, premier example of the form," Douglass's text has eclipsed other narratives and genres of slave writing (McDowell 192). Its representation of subjectivity has a transformative even transferential effect.
... Valerie Smith provided crucial encouragement and insight; her integrity, professional generos... more ... Valerie Smith provided crucial encouragement and insight; her integrity, professional generosity, and personal ... The difficult task is to achieve an axial connection between the historico-semantic ... Introduction xxiii that examining racial subjectivity is crucial to the critique of racist ...
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2022
In this article I argue that Douglas Sirk’s maternal melodrama, Imitation of Life (1959), advance... more In this article I argue that Douglas Sirk’s maternal melodrama, Imitation of Life (1959), advances an ideology whereby Black women are equated with and consigned to domestic labor. The film features two mother-daughter pairs, one Black and one white. The Black mother, Annie, works as a maid for the white mother. Annie’s light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane, passes as white to avoid following her mother’s condition. But Annie’s death at the film’s end seems to bring a contrite Sarah Jane back to her subservient place in the white family. I consider Imitation in relation to nineteenth-century traditions of racial melodrama and current theories of Black materialism to trace how US labor practices worked with discursive systems such as the movies to make the “Black maid” ubiquitous and the modifier unnecessary. Moreover, the structural inequality that relegates Black women to service requires them to act as if they are free agents within a rigged system: that is, to perform an imitation o...
... some lesser-studied works such as the paintings of Robert Colescott, the drawings of Richard ... more ... some lesser-studied works such as the paintings of Robert Colescott, the drawings of Richard Bruce Nugent, the fiction of Saul Bellow, the ... indicative of the ways in which white identity is "predicated on black Others." In a formulation that recalls Eric Lott's groundbreaking study of ...
Discourse Journal For Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, 2013
No pre-emancipation text by an African-American has enjoyed as much currency as Frederick Douglas... more No pre-emancipation text by an African-American has enjoyed as much currency as Frederick Douglass's 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Fredeňck Douglass , An American Slave, Written by Himself Long considered the paradigm text of African-American slave identity, Douglass's Narrative was a forceful testament for the abolition movement and for African-American literary and historical consciousness. Douglass commandeered American myths of selfreliance and heroic rebellion to describe his escape from slavery; in this way, he extended symbolic citizenship to African-Americans (Andrews 166). His Narrative modeled "a coherent self which subsequent generations could use as a point of origin of written AfroAmerican discourse and subjectivity" (Cunningham 109). Deemed the "prototypical, premier example of the form," Douglass's text has eclipsed other narratives and genres of slave writing (McDowell 192). Its representation of subjectivity has a transformative even transferential effect.
... Valerie Smith provided crucial encouragement and insight; her integrity, professional generos... more ... Valerie Smith provided crucial encouragement and insight; her integrity, professional generosity, and personal ... The difficult task is to achieve an axial connection between the historico-semantic ... Introduction xxiii that examining racial subjectivity is crucial to the critique of racist ...
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2022
In this article I argue that Douglas Sirk’s maternal melodrama, Imitation of Life (1959), advance... more In this article I argue that Douglas Sirk’s maternal melodrama, Imitation of Life (1959), advances an ideology whereby Black women are equated with and consigned to domestic labor. The film features two mother-daughter pairs, one Black and one white. The Black mother, Annie, works as a maid for the white mother. Annie’s light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane, passes as white to avoid following her mother’s condition. But Annie’s death at the film’s end seems to bring a contrite Sarah Jane back to her subservient place in the white family. I consider Imitation in relation to nineteenth-century traditions of racial melodrama and current theories of Black materialism to trace how US labor practices worked with discursive systems such as the movies to make the “Black maid” ubiquitous and the modifier unnecessary. Moreover, the structural inequality that relegates Black women to service requires them to act as if they are free agents within a rigged system: that is, to perform an imitation o...
... some lesser-studied works such as the paintings of Robert Colescott, the drawings of Richard ... more ... some lesser-studied works such as the paintings of Robert Colescott, the drawings of Richard Bruce Nugent, the fiction of Saul Bellow, the ... indicative of the ways in which white identity is "predicated on black Others." In a formulation that recalls Eric Lott's groundbreaking study of ...
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Papers by Gwen Bergner