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book: Dark Designs and Visual Culture
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Dark Designs and Visual Culture

Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2004

About this book

A collection of writings from the ‘90s by the popular Black feminist scholar and journalist on film, art, and politics.

Author / Editor information

Michele Wallace is Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University. She is the author of Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory and Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. She has written for numerous popular and scholarly publications, including The Village Voice, The New York Times, Emerge, Aperture, Ms., October, and Renaissance Noire.

Reviews

“Dark Designs and Visual Culture is a remarkable compilation of images, self-reflexive essays, and other critical works. It demonstrates Michele Wallace’s mastery of cultural criticism and indicates her interaction with American and African American visual culture during the past thirty years. A writer of extraordinary talent, she wields an ever sharpened insight and wit.”—Deborah Willis

“I can hardly think of a living critic who is as courageous as Michele Wallace—she says things no one else dares to—and this collection proves just how consistent her bravery has been over the years.”—Andrew Ross

“Michele Wallace has long been one of the most insightful and brave writers dealing with popular culture in this country. Her latest work continues that tradition of courage and wit.”—Nelson George

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
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  • Publicly Available

    CONTENTS

    vii
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  • Publicly Available

    Acknowledgments

    xi
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    Introduction

    1
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  • PART I. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL: 1989 THROUGH 2001
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    1 Whose Town? Questioning Community and Identity

    81
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    2 Places I’ve Lived

    85
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    3 Engaging and Escaping in 1994

    88
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    4 To Hell and Back: On the Road with Black Feminism in the ’60s and ’70s

    95
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    5 Censorship and Self-Censorship

    111
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    6 An Interview

    114
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  • PART II. MASS CULTURE AND POPULAR JOURNALISM
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    7 Watching Arsenio

    127
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    8 Black Stereotypes in Hollywood Films: ‘‘I Don’t Know Nothin’ ’Bout Birthin’ No Babies!’’

    130
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    9 When Black Feminism Faces the Music, and the Music Is Rap

    134
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    10 Storytellers: The Thomas–Hill Affair

    138
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    11 Talking about the Gulf

    141
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    12 Beyond Assimilation

    144
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    13 ‘‘Why Women Won’t Relate to ‘Justice’ ’’: Losing Her Voice

    147
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    14 For Whom the Bell Tolls: Why Americans Can’t Deal with Black Feminist Intellectuals

    149
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    15 Miracle in East New York

    161
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  • PART III. NEW YORK POSTMODERNISM AND BLACK CULTURAL STUDIES
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    16 The Politics of Location: Cinema/Theory/Literature/ Ethnicity/Sexuality/Me

    167
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    17 Black Feminist Criticism: A Politics of Location and Beloved

    179
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    18 Why Are There No Great Black Artists? The Problem of Visuality in African American Culture

    184
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    19 High Mass

    195
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    20 Symposium on Political Correctness

    197
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    21 The Culture War within the Culture Wars

    202
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    22 Boyz N the Hood and Jungle Fever

    215
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  • PART IV. MULTICULTURALISM IN THE ARTS
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    23 Race, Gender, and Psychoanalysis in Forties Films

    223
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    24 Multicultural Blues: An Interview with Michele Wallace

    238
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    25 Multiculturalism and Oppositionality

    249
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    26 Black Women in Popular Culture: From Stereotype to Heroine

    264
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    27 The Search for the Good Enough Mammy: Multiculturalism, Popular Culture, and Psychoanalysis

    275
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  • PART V. HENRY LOUIS GATES AND AFRICAN AMERICAN POSTSTRUCTURALISM
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    28 Henry Louis Gates: A Race Man and a Scholar

    289
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    29 If You Can’t Join ’Em, Beat ’Em: Stanley Crouch and Shaharazad Ali

    297
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    30 Let’s Get Serious: Marching with the Million

    309
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    31 Out of Step with the Million Man March

    311
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    32 Neither Fish nor Fowl: The Crisis of African American Gender Relations

    314
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    33 The Problem with Black Masculinity and Celebrity

    318
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    34 The Fame Game

    324
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    35 Skip Gates’s Africa

    328
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  • PART VI. QUEER THEORY AND VISUAL CULTURE
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    36 Defacing History

    339
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    37 When Dream Girls Grow Old

    353
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    38 The French Collection

    357
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    39 Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Problem of the Visual in Afro-American Culture

    364
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    40 A Fierce Flame: Marlon Riggs

    379
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    41 ‘‘Harlem on My Mind’’

    382
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    42 Questions on Feminism

    386
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    43 Feminism, Race, and the Division of Labor

    390
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    44 Doin’ the Right Thing: Ten Years after She’s Gotta Have It

    401
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    45 The Gap Alternative

    410
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    46 Art on My Mind

    417
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    47 Pictures Can Lie

    422
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    48 The Hottentot Venus

    426
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    49 Angels in America, Paris Is Burning, and Queer Theory

    430
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    50 Toshi Reagon’s Birthday

    454
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    51 Cheryl Dunye: Sexin’ the Watermelon

    457
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    52 The Prison House of Culture: Why African Art? Why the Guggenheim? Why Now?

    460
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    53 Black Female Spectatorship

    474
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    54 Bamboozled: The Archive

    486
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    Index

    495
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 6, 2004
eBook ISBN:
9780822386353
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
528
Other:
61 b&w photos
View content
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822386353
eBook ISBN: 9780822386353
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