The Psychic Hold of Slavery

Legacies in American Expressive Culture

Author: Soyica Diggs Colbert
Secondary Author: Robert J. Patterson
ISBN: 9780813583952

What would it mean to “get over slavery”? Is such a thing possible? Is it even desirable? Should we perceive the psychic hold of slavery as a set of mental manacles that hold us back from imagining a postracist America? Or could the psychic hold of slavery be understood as a tool, helping us get a grip on the systemic racial inequalities and restricted liberties that persist in the present day?    Featuring original essays from an array of established and emerging scholars in the interdisciplinary field of African American studies, The Psychic Hold of Slavery offers a nuanced dialogue upon these questions. With a painful awareness that our understanding of the past informs our understanding of the present—and vice versa—the contributors place slavery’s historical legacies in conversation with twenty-first-century manifestations of antiblack violence, dehumanization, and social death.    Through an exploration of film, drama, fiction, performance art, graphic novels, and

Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publish Date: 2016-07-20

Subjects: Social Science / Slavery, History / African American, Literary Criticism / American / African American, Psychology / Social Psychology, Social Science / Black Studies (Global), History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Africa (AFRC))