Scandalize My Name

From sapphire, mammy, and jezebel, to the angry black woman, baby mama, and nappy-headed ho, black female iconography has had a long and tortured history in public culture. The telling of this history has long occupied the work of black female theorists—much of which has been foundational in situating black women within the matrix of sociopolitical thought and practice in the United States. Scandalize My Name builds upon the rich tradition of this work while approaching the study of black female representation as an opening onto a critical contemplation of the vagaries of black social life. It makes a case for a radical black subject-position that structures and is structured by an intramural social order that revels in the underside of the stereotype and ultimately destabilizes the very notion of “civil society.” At turns memoir, sociological inquiry, literary analysis, and cultural critique, Scandalize My Name explores topics as varied as serial murder, reality television, Christian evangelism, teenage pregnancy, and the work of Toni Morrison to advance black feminist practice as a mode through which black sociality is both theorized and made material.

Studie over hoe de zwarte mensen beschreven en bezongen worden in de Amerikaanse muziek.

This work catalogs commercially produced recordings of Negro spirituals composed for solo concert vocalists. More than 5,000 tracks are listed, with entries sourced from a variety of recording formats. The featured recordings enhance the study of concert spiritual performance in studio, concert, worship service or competition settings. Arranged alphabetically, entries variously identify the accompaniment--including chorus, piano, orchestra, guitar, flute, and violin--in concert spiritual recordings. The voice types of soloists are included, as is the level of dialect used by various performers. The composers, publishers and format information are also listed when available. While structured like a discography, this guide extends beyond solely providing historical context and encourages the use of the recordings themselves.

Paul Robeson was a towering figure in American culture, conquering many disparate venues—from football to film and law to Shakespeare. An extraordinary athlete-scholar-actor-singer, Robeson also became a crusader for human rights. In Robeson: An American Ballad, Arnold Lubasch chronicles the remarkable life of this 20th century original. In addition to detailing the highs and lows of Robeson’s life and career, Lubasch offers several personal anecdotes about this American icon, and includes commentary on the 100th-anniversary celebration of Robeson’s birth.

Tom-Mania looks at the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and the songs, plays, sketches, translations and imitations it inspired. In particular it shows how the theatrical mode of blackface minstrelsy, the slavery question, and America's emerging cultural identity affected how the novel was read, discussed, dramatized, merchandized and politicised.

"A study of African American spirituals, which emerged out of slavery and reflect a blend of spirituality and yearning for liberation"--

On 5 July 1899 Hilda Blake, a 21-year-old maidservant in Brandon, Manitoba, who had come to Canada from England ten years earlier as an orphan immigrant, shot and killed her mistress. Two days after Christmas she was hanged, one of the few women in Canadian history to die for her crime. Blake unintentionally left a remarkable documentary record, ranging from Poorhouse records, courts dockets of custody and criminal cases in which she was the central figure, popular, journalistic, and professional assessments of her character, and a poem, 'My Downfall', that she penned in Brandon Gaol while awaiting execution. To explain why Hilda bought a gun and why she fired it, Kramer and Mitchell employee both historical and literary techniques. The result is a richly textured story of late Victorian social, cultural, and political life. This remarkable book - part mystery, part historical detective story - uncovers Hilda Blake's life, from her origins in Norfolk, England, to her tragic death. It also examines the lives of other principals in the story: successful Brandon businessman Robert Lane and his wife Mary, the murdered woman; Lane's business partner, Alexander McIlvride; Police Chief James Kircaldy; A.P. Stewart and his wife, Letitia Singer Stewart, the family for whom the 12-year-old orphaned Hilda first worked as a domestic servant; Rev. C.C. McLaurin, the Baptist minister who knew Hilda and counselled the condemned woman in her final days; social purity activist Dr Amelia Yeomans, who petitioned for clemency; Governor-General Minto, who urged the Laurier government to stay the execution, even Clifford Sifton, the MP from Brandon, federal minister of Immigration, and the most powerful western Liberal in the Laurier cabinet, for whom the case was a potential minefield. As the authors write, 'We tell a story because only a story can expose the real workings of a culture, and only a story can express our protest against time.'

Teaching preaching, like preaching itself, is a noble endeavor. After nearly four decades of teaching, Richard Lischer has sent legions of preachers across the world to preach gospel. This volume pays tribute to his faith-filled life of preaching and teaching. The contributors, some of whom were taught by Lischer, have received many laurels themselves, so readers will find in these pages wisdom for preaching from many quarters. Some authors include sermons with helpful commentary about the preaching exercise; some offer essays to illuminate the task of sermon writing; all acknowledge the influence of Richard Lischer on their preaching and teaching endeavors.