Legal fictions : constituting race, composing literature / Karla FC Holloway.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holloway, Karla F. C., 1949-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--African American authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--African American authors.

African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc--History.

African Americans.

Race discrimination--Law and legislation--United States--History.

Race discrimination.

Race discrimination--Law and legislation.

African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.

History.

United States.

Race in literature.

Physical Description:

xv, 158 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2014.

Summary:

"In Legal Fictions, Karla FC Holloway both argues that U.S. racial identity is the creation of U.S. law and demonstrates how black authors of literary fiction have engaged with the law's constructions of race since the era of slavery. Exploring the resonance between U.S. literature and U.S. jurisprudence, Holloway reveals Toni Morrison's Beloved and Charles Johnson's Middle Passage as stories about personhood and property, David Bradley's The Chaneysville Incident and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man as structured by evidence law, and Nella Larsen's Passing as intimately related to contract law."--Publisher description.

Contents:

The capital in question

Imagined liberalism

Mapping racial reason

Being in place : landscape, never inscape

Secondhand tales and hearsay

Black legibility : "Can I get a witness"

Trying to read me

"A novel-like tenor"

Passing and protection

A secluded colored neighborhood.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-144) and index.

ISBN:

9780822355816

0822355817

9780822355953

0822355957

OCLC:

854980326