For over two centuries; America has celebrated the very black culture it attempts to control and repress; and nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the strange practice of blackface performance. Born of extreme racial and class conflicts; the blackface minstrel show sometimes usefully intensified them. Based on the appropriation of black dialect; music; and dance; minstrelsy at once applauded and lampooned black culture; ironically contributing to a "blackening of America." Drawing on recent research in cultural studies and social history; Eric Lott examines the role of the blackface minstrel show in the political struggles of the years leading up to the Civil War. Reading minstrel music; lyrics; jokes; burlesque skits; and illustrations in tandem with working-class racial ideologies and the sex/gender system; Love and Theft argues that blackface minstrelsy both embodied and disrupted the racial tendencies of its largely white; male; working-class audiences. Underwritten by envy as well as repulsion; sympathetic identification as well as fear--a dialectic of "love and theft"--the minstrel show continually transgressed the color line even as it enabled the formation of a self-consciously white working class. Lott exposes minstrelsy as a signifier for multiple breaches: the rift between high and low cultures; the commodification of the dispossessed by the empowered; the attraction mixed with guilt of whites caught in the act of cultural thievery.
#2103211 in eBooks 1995-05-11 1993-10-28File Name: B000W0ZPWG
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A must have for any westerner who would like to build a japanese gardenBy Wayne HolbrookA must have for any westerner who would like to build a japanese garden. Although I had toured gardens in Japan and was privileged to speak with several garden masters; I found this book to be invaluable.My garden; shown in the attached photo meets the one absolute requirement for this type of garden; There is no point in the garden where every element is visible.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. One StarBy Lisa K Romereinthe book was a newer copy than was shown. I wanted the book that was shown in the photograph.2 of 10 people found the following review helpful. wrong edition; delayed shipping; no communicationBy A. PaukstaitisThe title of this review says it all. I had requested the 1989 edition of this book; which is where the seller had advertised. The 1959 edition came three days after the suggested delivery date which was January 19th; thus on January 22nd the book finally came after a purchase date of December 23rd. After three pleading emails for information on the shipping delivery; no response was ever received.