251 p., Argues that there is a difference between biological essentialism and racial authenticity. Essentialism is reactionary, whereas racial authenticity is thoughtful, constructed and aimed at countering common beliefs. Once authenticity is positioned as a means to an end and not an end itself, authenticity can be used as a way of reading social situations, questioning how authentic arguments are used in culture, and understanding why their use is sometimes necessary. Also, using authenticity as a way of reading social situations takes the focus off of the authentic representation of race and places attention on American society by examining how the authentic representation works in dialogue with other arguments about race. This study uses the Harlem Renaissance as a backdrop to view how Afro-Caribbeans inserted themselves into African American discourses on race. The dark skinned immigrants blended in visually, but were far removed from many of the formative racial experiences of their American peers. These people may have come to align with African Americans and fight white racism, but they were in fact taking up new identity positions and learning to perform forms of blackness on the fly. The works that are examined in the various chapters of this dissertation show Black writers as critical agents of change who work hard to balance their own personal needs with the needs of their race and position themselves within a racist society.
Adekunle,Julius (Editor) and Williams,Hettie V. (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
2013
Published:
Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
334 p., A volume of 16 essays analyzing the issues of blackness and identity of the African Diaspora in global perspective. Focuses on the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America.
Animan Akassi,Clément (Editor) and Lavou,Victorien (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Language:
Spanish, English, and French
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
358 p., Contents include "The africans and afrodescendants who constructed Veracruz and the jarocho ethos 1521-1778" by Marco Polo Hernàndez-Cuevas; (Re)presentacién afro-panameria en pensamientos del negro cubena: pensamiento afro-panameûo de Carlos Guillermo 'Cubena' Wilson" by Laverne M. Seales-Saley; "Mâs allâ del 'folklore': bunde y bullerengue, ritmos africanos de liberacién en Panamà" by Xiomara Aldeano-Bolton; "Repensando los movimientos sociales afrodescendientes en las Américas y el espacio Caribe" by Jesiis "Chucho" Garcia; "Negrismo and négritude: reflection on two poetics of Caribbean cultural identity" by Mamadou Badiane; "Politicas culturales, la formacién de la identidad hispano-africana y el hombre y la costumbre" by Elisa Rizo; "Movimientos culturales y politicos Afroperuanos entre los arios 1980-2000" by Alexis Rossemond;
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
141 p., Contents: Haciendo visibles a los invisibles / Paula Marcela Moreno Zapata --
Breve introducción sobre los aportes literarios y culturales afrocolombianos --
Catálogo de la Biblioteca de Literatura Afrocolombiana --
Guía de animación a la lectura : Biblioteca de Literatura Afrocolombiana / Beatriz Helena Robledo y José Ignacio Caro.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
210 p., From the days of slavery, the Negro from Martinique has never stopped "marronner", that is to say, to try to escape his condition, winning the great woods, the plebeians districts boroughs or even the neighboring islands. Simon, principal figure of the book, was one of them. He knew in the 17th century the arrival of the first slaves from Africa Guinea, the eighteenth hell of sugar plantations in the nineteenth fever abolition, in the early twentieth that of marching strikes and, at the dawn of XXI, the mare desperadoes of false modernity.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
111 p, Examines the ways Guadeloupean women writers Maryse Conde, Simone Schwarz-Bart and Myriam Warner-Vieyra demystify the theme of the return to Africa as opposed to the masculinist version by Negritude male writers from the 1930s to 1960s. Negritude, a cultural and literary movement, drew much of its strength from the idea of a mythical or cultural reconnection with the African past allegorized as a mother figure. In contrast these women writers, of the post-colonial era who are to large extent heirs of Negritude, differ sharply from their male counterparts in their representation of Africa. In their novels, the continent is not represented as a propitious mother figure but a disappointing father figure.
