Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America (Paperback)Karen Sotiropoulos (author)
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Staging Race casts a spotlight on the generation of black artists who came of age between 1890 and World War I in an era of Jim Crow segregation and heightened racial tensions. As public entertainment expanded through vaudeville, minstrel shows, and world's fairs, black performers, like the stage duo of Bert Williams and George Walker, used the conventions of blackface to appear in front of, and appeal to, white audiences. At the same time, they communicated a leitmotif of black cultural humor and political comment to the black audiences segregated in balcony seats. With ingenuity and innovation, they enacted racial stereotypes onstage while hoping to unmask the fictions that upheld them offstage.
Drawing extensively on black newspapers and commentary of the period, Karen Sotiropoulos shows how black performers and composers participated in a politically charged debate about the role of the expressive arts in the struggle for equality. Despite the racial violence, disenfranchisement, and the segregation of virtually all public space, they used America's new businesses of popular entertainment as vehicles for their own creativity and as spheres for political engagement.
The story of how African Americans entered the stage door and transformed popular culture is a largely untold story. Although ultimately unable to erase racist stereotypes, these pioneering artists brought black music and dance into America's mainstream and helped to spur racial advancement.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Number of pages: 304
Dimensions: 235 x 156 mm
Nowadays black minstrels are not seen as black performers trapped into humiliating roles, but as black performers helping to define what blackness was. Karen Sotiropoulos, in her extremely useful history, Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America, argues that the popular stage was a part of the political debate. - Darryl Pinckney, New York Review of Books
By examining the history of leading black artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Sotiropoulos addresses an important and often overlooked aspect of African American history. Staging Race is a valuable addition to the field of cultural studies and offers readers a new perspective on the role of commercial amusements and celebrity artists in the transformation of American race relations during the twentieth century. - Scott A. Newman, Journal of American History
Karen Sotiropoulos tells the riveting story of a group of black intellectuals who challenged social Darwinism, imperialism, segregation and promoted a discourse of black nation-building. Brilliantly written and conceived, Staging Race will force us all to rethink early 20th century black musical theater, as well as black political thought during the so-called ‘nadir’ of African American history. - Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
In Staging Race, Karen Sotiropoulos casts the politics of turn-of-the-century African-American entertainment in a new light. Tracing such figures as Bert Williams, Aida Overton Walker, and James Reese Europe, she reveals how black entertainers pushed against the minstrel stereotypes they were expected to perform, inserting social and political themes to speak directly to black audiences and over the heads of whites. They created performers’ organizations, established a black-owned sheet music company, and eventually broke onto the Broadway stage. Meticulous in its research, powerfully argued, and elegantly written, this is a first-rate work of scholarship. - Kathy Peiss, University of Pennsylvania
Sotiropoulos has written an exciting original piece of work that will prompt scholars to re-think what they knew about African American performers during the ‘nadir.’ She convincingly asserts that these artists played into and used the racist stereotypes that were being promulgated as a way of gaining space in the public arena. In using those stereotypes the African American performers were in a dialogue with their African American audiences about issues of personhood as well as critiquing the stereotype themselves. This is an important book. - Kenneth Goings, Ohio State University
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"Karen Sotiropoulos, mwandishi wa ""Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America"" anasema: ""Tutawasiliana na wewe ikiwa hakuna hisa zaidi na tutashiriki mapendekezo ya vitabu vingine, tutakuwasiliana wakati bidhaa hii itapatikana kwa utaratibu wa ""Staging Race"" inawakilisha kizazi cha wasanii weusi ambao walifikia umri kati ya 1890 na Vita vya Kwanza vya Ulimwengu katika enzi ya Jim Crow." Wakati burudani ya umma ilipanuka kupitia vaudeville, maonyesho ya minstrel, na maonyesho ya ulimwengu, waigizaji weusi, kama duo ya hatua ya Bert Williams na George Walker, walitumia mikataba ya uso mweusi kuonekana mbele ya, na kuvutia, watazamaji weupe. Wakati huo huo, waliwasiliana na leitmotif ya ucheshi wa kitamaduni wa weusi na maoni ya kisiasa kwa watazamaji weusi waliotenganishwa katika viti vya balcony. Kwa ubunifu na uvumbuzi, walianzisha mitazamo ya rangi kwenye jukwaa huku wakitumaini kufunua hadithi bandia zilizowasaidia nje ya jukwaa. Kwa kutegemea sana magazeti ya weusi na maoni ya kipindi hicho, Karen Sotiropoulos anaonyesha jinsi waigizaji weusi na watunzi walivyojihusisha katika mjadala wa kisiasa kuhusu jukumu la sanaa ya kujieleza katika mapambano ya usawa. Licha ya vurugu za rangi, ukosefu wa haki za kupiga kura, na kutenganishwa kwa karibu nafasi zote za umma, walitumia biashara mpya za burudani maarufu za Amerika kama magari ya ubunifu wao wenyewe na kama nyanja za ushiriki wa kisiasa. Hadithi ya jinsi Waafrika Wamarekani waliingia mlango wa hatua na kubadilisha utamaduni maarufu ni hadithi isiyoelezwa sana. Ingawa hatimaye hawakuweza kufuta mitazamo ya ubaguzi wa rangi, wasanii hawa wa upainia walileta muziki na densi za weusi katika jamii kuu ya Amerika na kusaidia kuchochea maendeleo ya rangi. "Mchoro wa ""Misteri ya Black"" wa Harvard University Press, ulichapishwa mnamo mwaka wa 1960 na ""Misteri ya Black"" ya mwaka wa 1960 ni moja ya nyimbo za kihistoria za kihistoria ambazo zinaonyesha jinsi watu weusi wanavyofanya kazi zao." Karen Sotiropoulos, katika kitabu chake cha Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America, anasema kwamba hatua ya watu wengi ilikuwa sehemu ya mjadala wa kisiasa. Darryl Pinckney, Mhariri wa New York wa Vitabu, kwa kuchunguza historia ya wasanii weusi wa mwisho wa karne ya kumi na tisa na mapema ya ishirini, Sotiropoulos anashughulikia kipengele muhimu na mara nyingi hupuuzwa cha historia ya Kiafrika ya Amerika. Staging Race ni nyongeza muhimu kwa uwanja wa masomo ya kitamaduni na inatoa wasomaji mtazamo mpya juu ya jukumu la burudani za kibiashara na wasanii maarufu katika mabadiliko ya mahusiano ya rangi ya Amerika katika karne ya ishirini. "Karen Sotiropoulos, mwandishi wa ""Jarida la Historia ya Marekani,"" anaelezea hadithi ya kundi la wasomi weusi ambao walipinga Darwinism ya kijamii, imperialism, na ubaguzi na kukuza mazungumzo ya ujenzi wa taifa nyeusi." "Kutokana na maandishi na mawazo ya kipaji, ""Staging Race"" itatulazimisha sisi sote kufikiria tena mapema karne ya 20 ya muziki wa weusi, na vile vile mawazo ya kisiasa ya weusi wakati wa ""nadir"" ya historia ya Afrika-Amerika." "Karen Sotiropoulos, mwandishi wa Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination in Staging Race, anasema: ""Mambo ya kisiasa ya burudani ya Afrika-Amerika ya mwishoni mwa karne hii yanaonekana katika mwangaza mpya." Akijaribu kufuatilia takwimu kama vile Bert Williams, Aida Overton Walker, na James Reese Ulaya, yeye anafunua jinsi wasanii weusi walivyopinga mitazamo ya minstrel ambayo walitarajiwa kufanya, kuingiza mandhari za kijamii na kisiasa kuzungumza moja kwa moja kwa watazamaji weusi na juu ya vichwa vya wazungu. Waliunda mashirika ya watendaji, wakaanzisha kampuni ya muziki inayomilikiwa na weusi, na hatimaye wakaingia kwenye jukwaa la Broadway. Kwa kuwa kitabu hicho kimechunguza mambo kwa uangalifu sana, kimedaiwa kwa nguvu, na kuandikwa kwa ustadi, ni kitabu cha elimu cha hali ya juu. Kathy Peis, Chuo Kikuu cha Pennsylvania, Sotiropoulos ameandika kazi ya awali ya kusisimua ambayo itawasukuma wasomi kufikiria tena kile walichojua juu ya wasanii wa Kiafrika wa Amerika wakati wa 'Nadir' - anasema kwa kuvutia kwamba wasanii hawa walicheza na kutumia stereotypes za ubaguzi wa rangi ambazo zilikuwa zikitangazwa kama njia ya kupata nafasi katika uwanja wa umma. Kwa kutumia stereotypes hizo, waigizaji wa Kiafrika-Wamarekani walikuwa katika mazungumzo na watazamaji wao wa Kiafrika-Wamarekani juu ya masuala ya utu na pia kukosoa stereotype wenyewe. Kitabu hiki ni muhimu. - Kenneth Goings, Chuo Kikuu cha Jimbo la Ohio Unaweza pia kuwa na nia ya... Je, ungependa kuendelea na Duka la Programu kupakua Programu ya Waterstones?