The souls of white folk : African American writers theorize whiteness / Veronica T. Watson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Watson, Veronica T.

Series:

Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies.

Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American literature.

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

White people--Race identity--In literature.

White people.

White people in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 170 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2013.

Summary:

This is the first study to consider the substantial body of African American writing that critiques Whiteness as social construction and racial identity. Arguing against the prevailing approach to these texts (which are generally known as 'white life literature') that says African American writers retreated from issues of 'race' when they wrote about Whiteness, instead this body of literature is identified as an African American intellectual and literary tradition that is named here as 'the literature of white estrangement'.

Contents:

Naming: The literature of white estrangement

"A form of insanity which overtakes white men": W.E.B. du Bois, Charles Chesnutt, and the specter of white double consciousness

"Shaping herself into a dutiful wife": demythologizing white femininity and the white home in Frank Yerby's The foxes of harrow and Zora Neale Hurston's Seraph on the Suwanee

"Occupied territory": mapping the spatial geographies of white identity and violence

Conclusion: "No white and legal heir": the responsibility of whiteness in a multiracial world.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-62103-980-3

1-61703-889-X

OCLC:

867739878