Race-ing Representation: Voice, History, and Sexuality(Culture and Education Series)

This collection takes on the problem of representing race in the context of a master language and culture. These essays discuss this problem in terms of the ongoing struggle to redefine the self as speaker, that is, to re-construe our understanding of history, sexuality, and speech itself in a continuing battle for self-definition. As a totality, these essays explode the notion of race as a natural boundary between groups and pose a variety of possible constructions that force us to accept race not as a category, but as a practice. Kostas and Linda Myrsiades have brought together scholars whose varied essays explore the issues of voice, history, and sexuality in such diverse venues as detective fiction, the Clarence Thomas hearings, the witches of Salem, the Harlem Renaissance, and the work of Toni Morrison, demonstrating that resistance to race-ing is both meaningfully engaged as a cultural possibility and rewritten as a linguistic practice.

About the Author :
Kostas Myrsiades is professor of English at West Chester University Linda Myrsiades is associate professor of English at West Chester University.

Review :
A thought-provoking, rewarding read . . . This collection of critical essays on the subject of race and representation is most notable in its appretiation for complexities among and within peoples grouped by virtue of race, class, sexual identity, nationality, sex, and any other category by essentialist thinkers. This wide-ranging collection of essays raises an array of critical questions surrounding culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, race, class, and nation at a time when inequality and exploitation are increasing worldwide. The essays are innovative, nuanced, and thought-provoking and constitute an exceptional combination of cultural analysis and political critique. A provocative and important work. Race-ing Representation provides an instructive mix of topics and approaches. Intelligent and provocative essays... strong, supple, detailed... Many of the essays in the volume offer useful meditaions on race-ing. This collection of critical essays on the subject of the race and representation is most notable in its appreciation for complexities among and within peoples grouped by virtue of race, class, sexual identity , nationality, sex, and other category courted by essentialist thinkers. A thought-provoking, rewarding read . . . This collection of critical essays on the subject of race and representation is most notable in its appretiation for complexities among and within peoples grouped by virtue of race, class, sexual identity, nationality, sex, and any other category by essentialist thinkers.