The melancholy of race : psychoanalysis, assimilation, and hidden grief
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The melancholy of race : psychoanalysis, assimilation, and hidden grief
（Race and American culture）
Oxford University Press, 2001
- : hard
- : pbk
Available at / 17 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-249) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: hard ISBN 9780195134032
Description
In this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study Anne A. Cheng argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity. She proposes that racial identification is itself already a melancholy act - a social category that is imaginatively supported through a dynamic of loss and compensation, by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained, denigrated and idealized. Drawing upon history,
literature and theatre - the book ranges from Rodgers and Hammerstein to David Henry Whang, Brown v. Board of Education to Anne Deveare Smith, Ralph Ellison to Maxine Hong Kingston - Cheng demonstrates that racial melancholia permeates our fantasies of citizenship, assimilation, and social health. A
provocative look at a timely cultural dilemma, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies, critical theory, or psychoanalysis.
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780195151626
Description
In this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study Anne Anlin Cheng argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity. The Melancholy of Race proposes that racial identification is itself already a melancholic act-a social category that is imaginatively supported through a dynamic of loss and compensation, by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained. Using psychoanalytic
theories on mourning and melancholia as inroads into her subject, Cheng offers a closely observed and carefully reasoned account of the minority experience as expressed in works of art by, and about, Asian-Americans and African-Americans. She argues that the racial minority and dominant American culture both
suffer from racial melancholia and that this insight is crucial to a productive reimagining of progressive politics. Her discussion ranges from "Flower Drum Song" to "M. Butterfly," Brown v. Board of Education to Anna Deavere Smith's "Twilight," and Invisible Man to The Woman Warrior, in the process demonstrating that racial melancholia permeates our fantasies of citizenship, assimilation, and social health. Her investigations reveal the common interests that social,
legal, and literary histories of race have always shared with psychoanalysis, and situates Asian-American and African-American identities in relation to one another within the larger process of American racialization. A provocative look at a timely subject, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies,
critical theory, or psychoanalysis.
by "Nielsen BookData"
