Blackness and Value: Seeing Double (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 117)

Book info: Blackness and Value: Seeing Double (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 117) (Hardcover, 286 pages) – Cambridge University Press, 1998. Language: English.

Blackness and Value investigates the principles by which "value" operates, and asks if it is useful to imagine that the concepts of racial blackness and whiteness in the United States operate in terms of these principles. Testing these concepts by exploring various theoretical approaches and their shortcomings, Lindon Barrett finds that the gulf between "the street" (where race is acknowledged as a powerful enigma) and the literary academy (where until recently it has not been) can be understood as a symptom of racial violence. While commonly approaches to race and value are examined historically or sociologically, this intriguing study provides a new critical approach that speaks to theorists of race as well as gender and queer studies. Editorial Reviews Review "Recommended for graduate students and researchers." Choice Book Description The book traces several interrelations between value and race, and offers relevant and fresh readings of two novels by Ann Petry.