6 options
The white negress : literature, minstrelsy, and the black-Jewish imaginary / Lori Harrison-Kahan.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Harrison-Kahan, Lori.
- Series:
- American Literatures Initiative.
- American Literatures Initiative
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- American literature--20th century--History and criticism.
- American literature.
- Passing (Identity) in literature.
- Women and literature--United States--History--20th century.
- Women and literature.
- Ethnicity in literature.
- African American women authors.
- Jewish women authors--United States.
- Jewish women authors.
- Americanization.
- Immigrants in literature.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (240 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2011.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- During the first half of the twentieth century, American Jews demonstrated a commitment to racial justice as well as an attraction to African American culture. Until now, the debate about whether such black-Jewish encounters thwarted or enabled Jews' claims to white privilege has focused on men and representations of masculinity while ignoring questions of women and femininity. The White Negress investigates literary and cultural texts by Jewish and African American women, opening new avenues of inquiry that yield more complex stories about Jewishness, African American identity, and the meanings of whiteness. Lori Harrison-Kahan examines writings by Edna Ferber, Fannie Hurst, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as the blackface performances of vaudevillian Sophie Tucker and controversies over the musical and film adaptations of Show Boat and Imitation of Life. Moving between literature and popular culture, she illuminates how the dynamics of interethnic exchange have at once produced and undermined the binary of black and white.
- Contents:
- From White Negress to Yiddishe mama: Sophie Tucker and the female blackface tradition
- The same Show Boat: Edna Ferber's interracial ideal
- Limitations of white: Fannie Hurst and the consumption of blackness
- Minstrel of the mountain: Zora Neale Hurston and the black-Jewish imaginary.
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 1-283-86420-7
- 0-8135-4989-2
- OCLC:
- 774279017
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.