Race, Work, and Desire in American Literature, 1860-1930Race, Work and Desire analyses literary representations of work relationships across the colour-line from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Michele Birnbaum examines inter-racial bonds in fiction and literary correspondence by black and white authors and artists - including Elizabeth Keckley, Frances E. W. Harper, W. D. Howells, Grace King, Kate Chopin, Langston Hughes, Amy Spingarn and Carl Van Vechten - exploring the way servants and employers, doctors and patients, and patrons and artists negotiate their racial differences for artistic and political ends. Situating these relationships in literary and cultural context, Birnbaum argues that the literature reveals the complexity of cross-racial relations in the workplace, which, although often represented as an oasis of racial harmony, is in fact the very site where race politics are most fiercely engaged. This study productively complicates current debates about cross-racial collaboration in American literary and race studies, and will be of interest to scholars in both literary and cultural studies. |
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Contents
working relations and racial desire | 1 |
Elizabeth Keckleys Behind The Scenes Or Thirty Years A Slave And Four Years In The White House ... | 28 |
2 Offcolor patients in Frances E W Harpers Iola Leroy and W D Howellss An Imperative Duty ... | 58 |
3 Alien hands in Kate Chopins The Awakening | 76 |
Langston Hughes and the art of patronage | 94 |
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Common terms and phrases
affective African Americans American appear argues artistic associated assumes becomes black and white blood body calls century chapter Chopin claim clothing Collection color critical cultural desire discussion domestic Duke University Edna Edna’s especially example explain fact father function gender give hand Harlem Harper’s Howells Howells’s Hughes Hughes’s identity Imperative Duty insists instance interest interracial intimacy Iola Italy Jewish Keckley Keckley’s kind less letters Lincoln literary Literature living Marie Mulatto narrative Negro never notes novel object offers ofthe Olney Oxford University Press patronage patrons play political published puts question Quoted race racial relations relationship representation represented Review Rhoda Robert says Scenes seems sense servant sexual simply slave slavery social South Spingarn suggests texts turn University Press Van Vechten Vechten woman women writing York
Bibliographic information
| Title | Race, Work, and Desire in American Literature, 1860-1930 Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture |
| Authors | Michele Birnbaum, Michele Elam |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 2003 |
| ISBN | 0521824257, 9780521824255 |
| Length | 195 pages |
| Subjects | › › Literary Criticism / American / General Literary Criticism / General |
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