Race and the Rhetoric of Resistance.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ferguson, Jeffrey B., 1953- author.

Contributor:

Sollors, Werner, Editor.

Hutchinson, George B., 1953- Author of afterword, colophon, etc.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (144 p.)

Place of Publication:

Rutgers University Press

Summary:

"Jeffrey B. Ferguson is remembered as an Amherst College professor of mythical charisma and for his long-standing engagement with George Schuyler, culminating in his paradigm-changing book The Sage of Sugar Hill. Continuing in the vein of his ever questioning the conventions of "race melodrama" through the lens of which so much American cultural history and storytelling has been filtered, Fergusons final work is brought together here in Race and the Rhetoric of Resistance. Ferguson asks, what would thinking about "race relations" be like if George Schuylers relentless questioning was heeded? How could the "bifurcating effects" of racial melodrama, the common, popular, and well-intentioned forms of sentimental heroicization and victimization be avoided in literary and in scholarly narratives? Ferguson goes deeper than any other literary and cultural critic in teasing out the ironies that have surrounded notions of race and racial cultural production in America. One further irony is that in order to highlight some of the current blind spots, he draws on classic American studies concepts and texts, including Ralph Waldo Emersons distinction between the party of memory and the party of hope, Alexis de Tocquevilles notions of American democracy and the races of America, Lionel Trillings distinction between sincerity and authenticity, and Edmund Morgans demonstration of the interconnectedness of American slavery and freedom. Elegant, memorable, and aphoristically written, these essays convey to the reader Fergusons sense of humor, warmth, and grace, while they add up to a serious and principled critique of much common scholarly and pedagogic practice"--

ISBN:

9781978820845

1978820844