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The Black Body As Souvenir In American Lynching, Harvey Young

Harvey Young

This essay reads the collection of body parts, in the aftermath of the lynching spectacle, as souvenirs, fetish objects, and performance remains. Along the way, it spotlights the importance of narrative to the souvenir, challenges the notion that performance disappears through an emphasis on its remains, and asserts that embodied experiences of the past can be accessed in the present.