About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherUniversity Press of Mississippi

ISBN-10161703665X

ISBN-139781617036651

eBay Product ID (ePID)2309770351

Product Key Features

Number of Pages240 Pages

Publication NameProperties of Violence : Claims to Ownership in Representations of Lynching

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2012

SubjectAmerican / African American, Art & Politics, African American, Subjects & Themes / General, Ethnic Studies / African American Studies

TypeTextbook

AuthorSandy Alexandre

Subject AreaLiterary Criticism, Art, Social Science, History

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight18.8 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceCollege Audience

LCCN2012-014394

ReviewsA remarkable monograph . . . Alexandre has unmoored the history of lynching from the white-supremacist discourse to which it was anchored so as to open its accounting to multiple interpretive possibilities and return psychological and politically empowered agency to its victims.

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Edition23

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal810.9/896073

SynopsisThe Properties of Violence focuses on two connected issues: representations of lynching in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American photographs, poetry, and fiction; and the effects of those representations. Alexandre compellingly shows how putting representations of lynching in dialogue with the history of lynching uncovers the profound investment of African American literature--as an enterprise that continually seeks to create conceptual spaces for the disenfranchised culture it represents--in matters of property and territory. Through studies ranging from lynching photographs to Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, the book demonstrates how representations of lynching demand that we engage and discuss various forms of possession and dispossession. The multiple meanings of the word ""representation"" are familiar to literary critics, but Alexandre's book insists that its other key term, ""effects,"" also needs to be understood in both of its primary senses. On the one hand, it indicates the social and cultural repercussions of how lynching was portrayed, namely, what effects its representations had. On the other hand, the word signals, too, the possessions or what we might call the personal effects conjured up by these representations. These possessions were not only material--as for example property in land or the things one owned. The effects of representation also included diverse, less tangible but no less real possessions shared by individuals and groups: the aura of a lynching site, the ideological construction of white womanhood, or the seemingly default capacity of lynching iconography to encapsulate the history of ostensibly all forms of violence against black people., The Properties of Violence focuses on two connected issues: representations of lynching in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American photographs, poetry, and fiction; and the effects of those representations. Alexandre compellingly shows how putting representations of lynching in dialogue with the history of lynching uncovers the profound investment of African American literature?as an enterprise that continually seeks to create conceptual spaces for the disenfranchised culture it represents?in matters of property and territory. Through studies ranging from lynching photographs to Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved , the book demonstrates how representations of lynching demand that we engage and discuss various forms of possession and dispossession. The multiple meanings of the word ?representation? are familiar to literary critics, but Alexandre's book insists that its other key term, ?effects,? also needs to be understood in both of its primary senses. On the one hand, it indicates the social and cultural repercussions of how lynching was portrayed, namely, what effects its representations had. On the other hand, the word signals, too, the possessions or what we might call the personal effects conjured up by these representations. These possessions were not only material?as for example property in land or the things one owned. The effects of representation also included diverse, less tangible but no less real possessions shared by individuals and groups: the aura of a lynching site, the ideological construction of white womanhood, or the seemingly default capacity of lynching iconography to encapsulate the history of ostensibly all forms of violence against black people., The Properties of Violence focuses on two connected issues: representations of lynching in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American photographs, poetry, and fiction; and the effects of those representations. Alexandre compellingly shows how putting representations of lynching in dialogue with the history of lynching uncovers the profound investment of African American literature--as an enterprise that continually seeks to create conceptual spaces for the disenfranchised culture it represents--in matters of property and territory. Through studies ranging from lynching photographs to Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved , the book demonstrates how representations of lynching demand that we engage and discuss various forms of possession and dispossession. The multiple meanings of the word "representation" are familiar to literary critics, but Alexandre's book insists that its other key term, "effects," also needs to be understood in both of its primary senses. On the one hand, it indicates the social and cultural repercussions of how lynching was portrayed, namely, what effects its representations had. On the other hand, the word signals, too, the possessions or what we might call the personal effects conjured up by these representations. These possessions were not only material--as for example property in land or the things one owned. The effects of representation also included diverse, less tangible but no less real possessions shared by individuals and groups: the aura of a lynching site, the ideological construction of white womanhood, or the seemingly default capacity of lynching iconography to encapsulate the history of ostensibly all forms of violence against black people., A study in the representative forms of lynching violence and their effects The Properties of Violence focuses on two connected issues: representations of lynching in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American photographs, poetry, and fiction; and the effects of those representations. Alexandre compellingly shows how putting representations of lynching in dialogue with the history of lynching uncovers the profound investment of African American literature--as an enterprise that continually seeks to create conceptual spaces for the disenfranchised culture it represents--in matters of property and territory. Through studies ranging from lynching photographs to Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, the book demonstrates how representations of lynching demand that we engage and discuss various forms of possession and dispossession. The multiple meanings of the word "representation" are familiar to literary critics, but Alexandre's book insists that its other key term, "effects," also needs to be understood in both its primary senses. On the one hand, it indicates the social and cultural repercussions of how lynching was portrayed, namely, what effects its representations had. On the other hand, the word signals, too, the possessions or what we might call the personal effects conjured up by these representations. These possessions were not only material--as for example property in land or the things one owned. The effects of representation also included diverse, less tangible but no less real possessions shared by individuals and groups: the aura of a lynching site, the ideological construction of white womanhood, or the seemingly default capacity of lynching iconography to encapsulate the history of ostensibly all forms of violence against black people. Sandy Alexandre, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is Assistant Professor of Literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

LC Classification NumberPS173.N4A44 2012