Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance

Carpenter, Faedra C.

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.5262413

Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance

Faedra Chatard Carpenter

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Coloring Whiteness pays homage to the ways that African American artists and performers have interrogated tropes and mythologies of whiteness to reveal racial inequalities, focusing on comedy sketches, street theater, visual art, video, TV journalism, and voice-over work since 1964. By investigating enactments of whiteness—from the use of white makeup and suggestive masks, to literary motifs and cultural narratives regarding "white" characteristics and qualities—Faedra Chatard Carpenter explores how artists have challenged commonly held notions of racial identity. Through its layered study of expressive culture, her book considers how artistic and performance strategies are used to "color" whiteness and complicate blackness in our contemporary moment.

Utilizing theories of performance and critical race studies, Coloring Whiteness is also propelled by Carpenter's dramaturgical sensibilities. Her analysis of primary performance texts is informed not only by traditional print and visual materials, but also by her interviews with African American theater artists, visual artists, and cultural critics. The book is an invaluable contribution to the fields of theater and performance studies, African American studies, cultural studies, critical race studies, and American studies.

Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Contents
INTRODUCTION: Dramaturgies of Whiteness in Contemporary African American Performance
CHAPTER ONE Douglas Turner Ward’s Play on Whiteness:Day of Absence on America’s Public Stages
CHAPTER TWO Staging Hegemonic Whiteness:The Bluest Eye and the Performative Paradoxes of (In)visibility
CHAPTER THREE Whiteness as “Becoming”:The Corporeal Crossovers of Daniel Tisdale and Michael Jackson
CHAPTER FOUR “Mixing It Up”:Enacting Whiteness in the Comedic World of Dave Chappelle
CHAPTER FIVE “Sounding Off on Sounding White”:Aural Whiteness, Linguistic Whiteface, and the Economics of Opportunity
CODA: Whiteface to Postrace?The Artful Interrogations of Jefferson Pinder
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citable Link

Published: 2014

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

ISBN(s)

978-0-472-07236-1 (hardcover)
978-0-472-12065-9 (ebook)
978-0-472-05236-3 (paper)

Series

Theater: Theory/Text/Performance

Subject

University of Michigan Press
Ebook Collection

Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance

Overview

Contents

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