Afro-Nostalgia : feeling good in contemporary black culture / Badia Ahad-Legardy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ahad-Legardy, Badia, author.

Series:

New Black studies series

The new Black studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American literature.

American literature--African American authors.

Nostalgia in literature.

Happiness in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 205 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana, IL : University of Illinois Press, [2021]

Summary:

"As early as the eighteenth century, white Americans and Europeans believed that people of African descent could not experience nostalgia. As a result, black lives have been predominately narrated through historical scenes of slavery and oppression. This phenomenon created a missing archive of romantic historical memories. Badia Ahad-Legardy mines literature, visual culture, performance, and culinary arts to form an archive of black historical joy for use by the African-descended. Her analysis reveals how contemporary black artists find more than trauma and subjugation within the historical past. Drawing on contemporary African American culture and recent psychological studies, she reveals nostalgia's capacity to produce positive emotions. Afro-nostalgia emerges as an expression of black romantic recollection that creates and inspires good feelings even within our darkest moments. Original and provocative, Afro-Nostalgia offers black historical pleasure as a remedy to contend with the disillusionment of the present and the traumas of the past." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction. Ten thousand recollections: Afro-nostalgia and contemporary Black aesthetics

(Nostalgic) retribution: the power of the petty in contemporary narratives of slavery

(Nostalgic) restoration: Utopian pasts and political futures in the music of Black Lives Matter

(Nostalgic) regeneration: absent archives and historical pleasures in contemporary Black visual culture

(Nostalgic) reclamation: recipes for radicalism and the politics of soul(food)

Postscript: a future for Black nostalgia.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-196) and index.

ISBN:

0252085663

9780252085666

9780252043666

0252043669

OCLC:

1196242492