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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
Belief And Performance, Morrison And Me, Koritha Mitchell
Belief And Performance, Morrison And Me, Koritha Mitchell
Koritha Mitchell
A chapter discussing the lessons I learned from Toni Morrison's THE BLUEST EYE that continue to guide me. The insights gained from that novel have informed my intellectual work and my ability to navigate the U.S. academy.
Hollywood's White Legal Heroes And The Legacy Of Slave Codes, Katie Rose Guest Pryal
Hollywood's White Legal Heroes And The Legacy Of Slave Codes, Katie Rose Guest Pryal
Katie Rose Guest Pryal
This chapter explores the portrayal of black defendants in mainstream legal cinema and draws connections between these portrayals, the legacy of slave codes, and the Supreme Court's rejection of statistical and historical proof of racism in the application of the death penalty. I focus on a sub-genre of legal cinema, what I call the "White Legal Hero" narrative. The typical white legal hero film tells the story of an innocent or otherwise righteous black male defendant facing a capital charge. He is represented by a white male "hero" lawyer who tries to overcome the racist justice system. The failure of …
James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings The Blues For Mister Charlie, Koritha Mitchell
James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings The Blues For Mister Charlie, Koritha Mitchell
Koritha Mitchell
James Baldwin worked tirelessly to expose the myths that allowed Americans to delude themselves. Scholars have long recognized this as the driving force of his fiction and non-fiction, but this mission was also very much linked to Baldwin's conception of theater. This essay culls Baldwin's theater theory from his non-fiction, especially his seldom-discussed The Devil Finds Work (1976). Baldwin believed that theater could "re-create" people by helping us to re-discover our human connection, and he believed that stage actors could show the way. Baldwin's respect for stage actors develops over time, however. He reaches his conclusions only after realizing—in hindsight—how …