Stay Black and Die
eBook - PDF

Stay Black and Die

On Melancholy and Genius

  1. 343 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Stay Black and Die

On Melancholy and Genius

About this book

In Stay Black and Die, I. Augustus Durham examines melancholy and genius in black culture, letters, and media from the nineteenth century to the contemporary moment. Drawing on psychoanalysis, affect theory, and black studies, Durham explores the black mother as both a lost object and a found subject often obscured when constituting a cultural legacy of genius across history. He analyzes the works of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Marvin Gaye, Octavia E. Butler, and Kendrick Lamar to show how black cultural practices and aesthetics abstract and reveal the lost mother through performance. Whether attributing Douglass's intellect to his matrilineage, reading Gaye's falsetto singing voice as a move to interpolate black female vocality, or examining the women in Ellison's life who encouraged his aesthetic interests, Durham demonstrates that melancholy becomes the catalyst for genius and genius in turn is a signifier of the maternal. Using psychoanalysis to develop a theory of racial melancholy while "playing" with affect theory to investigate racial aesthetics, Durham theorizes the role of the feminine, especially the black maternal, in the production of black masculinist genius.

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Information

Year
2023
Print ISBN
9781478025528
9781478020745
eBook ISBN
9781478027652

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Figures
  4. Echo | I
  5. Thank | You; or, Acknowledgments
  6. Color | Blackness
  7. Read | Frederick
  8. Travel | Ralph
  9. Man | Marvin
  10. Woman | Gan
  11. Love | Kendrick
  12. Study | Us
  13. Notes
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index

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Yes, you can access Stay Black and Die by I. Augustus Durham in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & African American Studies. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.