The Melancholy of Race Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief |
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| Author:
| Cheng, Anne Anlin |
| Series title: | Race and American Culture Ser. |
| ISBN: | 978-0-19-515162-6 |
| Publication Date: | Jan 2002 |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press, Incorporated
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | AUD $127.95AUD $116.32 |
Book Description:
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The Melancholy of Race argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity. Anne A. Cheng proposes that racial identification is itself already a melancholy act - a social category that is imaginatively supported through a dynamic loss and compensation, by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained, denigrated and idealized. Drawing upon history, literature and theatre - the book ranges from Rodgers...
More DescriptionThe Melancholy of Race argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity. Anne A. Cheng proposes that racial identification is itself already a melancholy act - a social category that is imaginatively supported through a dynamic loss and compensation, by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained, denigrated and idealized. Drawing upon history, literature and theatre - the book ranges from Rodgers and Hammerstein to David Henry Whang, Brown v. Board of Education to Anna Deveare Smith, Ralph Ellison to Maxine Hong Kingston - Cheng demonstrates that racial melancholia permeates our fantasies of citizenship, assimilation and social health. A provocative look at a timely cultural dilemma, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies, critical theory or psychoanalysis.