Race and Ethnicity Commons^™

Gin, Jesus, & Jim Crow: Prohibition And The Transformation Of Racial And Religious Politics In The South, John Compton

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Brendan J J Payne's Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South.

Review Of Abject Performances: Aesthetic Strategies In Latino Cultural Production, Renee Hudson

English Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Leticia Alvarado's Abject Performances: Aesthetic Strategies in Latino Cultural Production.

The Color Of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, And Socialization In Black Brazilian Families (Book Review), Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Book review of the The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families by Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015.

Book Review: Nature, Human Nature, And Human Difference: Race In Early Modern Philosophy, David B. Levy

Touro University Libraries Publications and Research

The author reviews the book Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy.

Land Of The Cosmic Race: Race Mixture, Racism, And Blackness In Mexico (Book Review), Amanda Moras

Sociology Faculty Publications

Book review by Amanda Moras.

Sue, C.A. (2013). Land of the cosmic race: Race mixture, racism, and blackness In Mexico. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

ISBN 9780199925483 (hardcover); 9780199925506 (paperback)

Review Of Restoring The Connection To The Natural World: Essays On The African American Environmental Imagination, Uwe Küchler

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In her introduction to The Ecocriticism Reader from 1995, a landmark in the short and dynamic development of this new field of knowledge, Cheryl Glotfelty anticipated that "Ecocriticism has been predominantly a white movement. It will become a multi-ethnic movement when stronger connections are made between the environment and issues of social justice, and when a diversity of voices are encouraged to contribute to the discussion" (Glotfelty 1996, xxv). The collection of essays reviewed here, published in 2003, fills this gap in ecocritical research. The nine contributors to Sylvia Mayer's edition have critically evaluated various aspects of African …

On Bill V. Mullen's Afro-Orientalism, Graham Barnfield

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

For two decades Edward Said's Orientalism has occupied a significant place in how we think through the cultural relations between what we now call ‘North’ and ‘South’. Conceived in the 1970s, Said’s model mounted a challenge to readers in the west, suggesting they should unlearn what they know of the east. Despite its influence, one weakness of this approach was the underlying suggestion that orientalism was a one-way street, constituting a fixed set of perceptions or timeless discourses. In and without the Orientalist imagination, what is to be done with those in ‘the Occident’ who find themselves treated …

On Linzer, Schnall, And Chanes' A Portrait Of The American Jewish Community, Rob K. Baum

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

A Portrait of the American Jewish Community seems at first a contemporary, informed attempt to answer the old-and, for Jews, imperative-question, What is a Jew? And in the leading chapter Norman Linzer does project the changing nature of Jewish identity, with what he calls the postmodern decline of dissonance, a euphemism for the experience of Jewish difference. The beginning is suggestive of the philosophical treatise on the collapse of modern Jewish identity formulated in such work as Rabbi Michael Goldberg's Why Should Jews Survive? (NY: Oxford, 1998). But the book's carefully detailed chapters on Jewish American federations, social …

Contract Rights And Civil Rights, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Make Haste Slowly: Moderates, Conservatives, And School Desegregation In Houston, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of But For Birmingham: The Local And National Movements In The Civil Rights Struggle, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Forced Justice: School Desegregation And The Law And Race Relations Litigation In An Age Of Complexity, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Justifying Racial Reform, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Desegregating Texas Schools: Eisenhower, Shivers, And The Crisis At Mansfield High, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The End Of Busing?, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

[Review Of] Alfred Arteaga, Ed. An Other Tongue, Kumiko Takahara

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

People who are regarded as minorities by their dominant peers are pressured to establish their identity as citizens of a nation and as individuals of a distinct culture. Their identity may be articulated differently governed by such factors as language, race, gender, political and economical status, and so on. All of the fifteen essays collected in this book are purported to address various material conditions of discourse revolving around nation and ethnicity with special focus on linguistic conditions in the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. These essays roughly fall into two categories according to their focus either on …

[Review Of] Nancy Ablemann And John Lie. Blue Dreams: Korean Americans And The Los Angeles Riot, Eugene C. Kim

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Beginning with a poetic title, Blue Dreams, the authors recount in depth as to how the Blue Dreams of the Korean American merchants in the East Los Angeles had shattered in the midst of 1992 riot that turned out to be “elusive dreams” in America (Blue symbolizes color of heaven, sky, and hope for Koreans).

[Review Of] David G. Such. Avant-Garde Jazz Musicians: Performing "Out There ", Andrew Bartlett

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The burgeoning scholarship on the avant-garde in jazz of the 1950s and 1960s still accounts for only a small number of scholarly jazz-related publications. Though the ascendance of interdisciplinary, cultural studies paradigms leave open many pathways to discussions of avant-garde jazz, David G. Such's Avant-Garde Jazz Musicians incorporates little ofthe cultural criticism Ronald Radano offers in his equally new New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton’s Cultural Critique (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Such instead focuses multiply on what avant-garde musicians say about their music's position a handful of topical devices which head chapters in the text. From considering "Labels," an …

[Review Of] Darrell Y. Yamamoto. Monitored Peril, Kumiko Takahara

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Television has been one of the most influential media in constructing the racialized social image of Asian Americans. Through meticulous examinations of roles and stories given to Asian Americans in television and combined with careful analysis of political and social events, the author successfully reconstructs a comprehensive history of Asian Americans in the entertainment world over the period of the past five decades. In fact, this book merits more than a mere media study of Asian Americans for its delivery of a critical view of historical relationships of the United States with Asia which are responsible for creating continuously popular …

[Review Of] Maria, Espinosa. Dark Plums; Maria, Espinosa. Longing, Maythee Rojas

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Published within the same year, Dark Plums and Longing both delve into the darker side of the human psyche. Similar in topic, the novels explore the complex relationship between love, sexuality, and power. While Dark Plums gives its readers a voyeuristic look into the life of Adrianne, a young, insecure Chilean-American woman who seeks to find herself through various sexual encounters with men and women, Longing leads them through the painful psychological recovery of American Jew Rosa and the simultaneous mental breakdown of her Chilean husband, Antonio. in addition, each novel focuses around the female protagonists' struggle for inner strength …

[Review Of] Kenneth Robert Janken. Rayford W. Logan And The Dilemma Of The African-American Intellectual, Vernon J. Williams Jr

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In this superb reconstruction of the life of Rayford W. Logan, Kenneth Robert Janken, an assistant professor of African American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, draws on his protagonist's somewhat tormented life to document the veracity of John Hope Franklin's thesis that, "it was the American Negro scholar's dilemma to be obligated constantly to challenge the notion of black inferiority”. Put another way, despite Logan's credentials -- he held a Ph.D. from Harvard University in history; wrote twelve books, including the classic, The Betrayal of the Negro; edited several others, among them, What the Negro …

[Review Of] W. S. Penn. All My Sins Are Relatives, Gretchen M. Bataille

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

W.S. Penn writes with wit and cleverness, but also with passion and love, about himself, his blood relatives, and his spiritual relatives. If the sins of the father are visited upon the son, Penn is doubly doomed by his need to understand his grandfather’s generation as well as his father’s. It is his grandfather and his father, as well as numerous others, to whom the book is dedicated, and it is this line of family members who have created the writer and critic who explores his own life as a mixed blood by simultaneously exploring the lives of his relatives …

[Review Of] Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Ann Rouse, And Barbara Woods, Eds. Women In The Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers And Torchbearers, 1941-1965, George H. Junne Jr

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Many chronicles of the Civil Rights Movements seem to depict the activities of men such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), Bobby Seale, and other important persons. Though they merit the attention they receive, it is quite apparent that the central role of women has been omitted. Sexism among historians and those involved in the movement have concealed their centrality. This work attempts to address that situation by recounting the importance of women such as Ella Baker, Mary Fair Burks, Septima Clark, Doris Derby, Famnie [Fannie] Lou Hamer, Zilphia Horton, Dr. Lillian Johnson, Denise …

[Review Of] Carl Gutierrez-Jones. Rethinking The Borderlands: Between Chicano Culture And Legal Discourse, David Goldstein-Shirley

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In this ambitious book, Carl Gutierrez-Jones musters ideas from Critical Race Studies, Critical Legal Studies, and literary scholarship to explicate the relationship between Chicanos and the law. Contrary to the notion that American jurisprudence is a neutral, value-free institution, the author argues that, as Chicano and especially Chicana artists have depicted, the legal system's emphasis on individual responsibility ignores the economic and social milieu entangling Chicanos. The broad scholarship, incisive analysis, and careful reasoning make this book a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Chicano experience.

[Review Of] William H. Tucker. The Science And Politics Of Racial Research, Vernon J. Williams

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Since there is usually a two year period of time that elapses between the acceptance of a manuscript by a university press and its publication, we must commend William H. Tucker, who is an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University, in his anticipation of contemporary controversies in reference to the relative abilities of races. Tucker argues that there is continuity in the thought of racists, which over the past two centuries include anthropometricians, eugenicists, and segregationists. ”The imprimatur of science,“ Tucker argues cogently, ”has been offered to justify, first slavery and, later, segregation, nativism, socio-political inequality, class subordination, poverty, …

[Review Of] Peter Eichstaedt. If You Poison Us: Uranium And Native Americans, Dorie S. Goldman

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

"The history of our nation's relations with American Indians is one of ignorance, indifference, exploitation and broken promises." This statement opens journalist Peter Eichstaedt's book, If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans, an examination of this abusive history supplemented with personal interviews, government documents, and a detailed bibliography. Eichstaedt's account of how America's quest for uranium led to mining on reservation lands, consequently poisoning both the land and the miners, is a useful study for someone working in Native American or justice studies while still remaining accessible to a general audience.

[Review Of] Tu Wei-Ming,Ed. The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning Of Being Chinese Today, Jim Schnell

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This book evolved from the spring, 1991 special issue of “Daedalus, the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences". Tu Wei-ming presents a collection of perspectives of the Chinese identity. These essays stand alone well, some are more relevant and better written than others (as will be addressed in this review), but they collectively fail to provide a coherent unified interpretation. The chapter topics are somewhat related but the continuity among them is weak (which should not be interpreted as a shortcoming of the individual chapter authors).

[Review Of] Clovis E. Semmes. Cultural Hegemony And African American Development, Carol Ward

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The purpose of this book is to examine cultural aspects of hegemonic relations between White Americans and African Americans, a neglected topic which the author believes should provide the basis for African American Studies programs. Although Semmes establishes culture as the focus of his analysis, political and economic forces are clearly important for understanding the position of Black Americans in the changing social organization of the United States. Defined as regularity in subjective states, culture is theorized as interacting with social organization, as institutional settings frame cultural expressions and vice versa.

[Review Of] Louis Owens. Bone Game. American Indian Literature And Critical Studies Series, Julie Lamay Abner

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Tricksters in Native American thought often include the gambler and skinwalker. Traditionally, the character of the gambler appears in order to test a person, who must play and win a life and death game so that the individual (specifically) and the tribe (generally) will survive. And, according to anthropologist Larry Sunderland, a Navajo skinwalker ostensibly inserts a bone into a victim's body without breaking the skin. This action often results in mental and/or physical injury, illness, and death. The bone can only be removed ceremoniously by a shaman (hitaaIi); both the gambler and skinwalker are shapeshifters. During the Morning Star …

[Review Of] Beatriz Rivera. African Passions And Other Stories, Carl R. Shirley

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In recent years there have been many novels, collections of short stories, and editions of poetry published by Mexican-Americans, but the works by Cuban-Americans have not been as plentiful. African Passions, the first published collection by Beatriz Rivera, is a promising but not altogether satisfying contribution to the corpus of Cuban-American writing. It is sometimes brilliant and imaginative, sometimes not very inspiring, with eight stories (several of which are interrelated) ranging from the humorous and well-conceived to the rather tedious.