Title Black women, identity, and cultural theory : (un)becoming the subject / Kevin Everod Quashie

Published New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, ©2004

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Description 1 online resource (1 volume) Contents Introduction : what becomes -- The other dancer as self : notes on girlfriend selfhood -- Self(full)ness and the politics of community -- Liminality and selfhood : toward being enough -- An indisputable memory of blackness -- The practice of a memory body -- Toward a language aesthetic -- My own, language -- Conclusion : what is undone Summary Kevin Everod Quashie explores the metaphor of the "girlfriend" as a new way of understanding three central concepts of cultural studies: self, memory, and language. He considers how the works of writers such as Toni Morrison, Ama Ata Aidoo, Dionne Brand, photographer Lorna Simpson, and many others, inform debates over the concept of identity. Quashie argues that these artists replace the notion of a stable, singular identity with the concept of the self developing in a process both communal and perpetually fluid, a relationship that functions in much the same way that an adult woman negotiates with her girlfriend(s). He suggests that memory itself is corporeal, a literal body that is crucial to the process of becoming. Quashie also explores the problem that language poses for the black woman artist and her commitment to a mastery that neither colonizes nor excludes. The analysis throughout this book interacts with schools of thought such as psychoanalysis, postmodernism, and postcolonialism, but Ultimately moves beyond these to propose a new cultural aesthetic that aims to center black women and their philosophies. Book jacket Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-219) and index Notes English Print version record Subject American literature -- African American authors -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc African American women -- Intellectual life Women and literature -- United States African American women in literature. Identity (Psychology) in literature. Women, Black -- Intellectual life African American photographers. Group identity in literature. African American aesthetics. Women, Black, in literature. Women photographers. LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General. African American aesthetics African American photographers African American women in literature African American women -- Intellectual life Group identity in literature Identity (Psychology) in literature Women and literature Women, Black, in literature Women, Black -- Intellectual life Women photographers Frauenliteratur Schwarze Schwarze Frau Schriftstellerin Ethnische Identität United States USA Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780813555409 081355540X 0813535360 9780813535364

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