Black Women as Cultural Readers [Paperback]

Jacqueline Bobo (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231083955 | ISBN-13: 978-0231083959 | Publication Date: April 15, 1995 0

Bobo demonstrates that African-American women, as a separate interpretive community, view cultural products in a unique way. In interviews with black women, she examines their specific responses as spectators and consumers of films and novels, including Waiting to Exhale, The Color Purple, and Daughters of the Dust.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A pathbreaking study of African-American women's responses to literature and film. . . . Bobo focuses on a small group of middle-class African-American women as they process literature (by Terry McMillan, Alice Walker) that addresses their own experiences. . . . This work should command the attention of all scholars of American popular culture. -- Choice

How do black women react as an audience to representations of themselves, and how do their patterns of consumption differ from other groups? Interviews with ordinary black women from many backgrounds uses novels and films to reveal how black female audiences absorb works. -- Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Jacqueline Bobo is Chair and Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is editor of the anthology, Black Feminist Cultural Criticism: Classic Readings (Blackwell Publishers, January 2001) and of Black Women Film and Video Artists (Routledge, 1998).

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (April 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231083955
• ISBN-13: 978-0231083959
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good initial book on black female viewership, February 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Women as Cultural Readers (Paperback)

Bobo is a well-respected African-American woman in film studies. In this book, she notes the severe lack of studies out there on black female viewing habits and then presents this book as her intervention against this paucity. The book can be broken down into to parts. In one part, Bobo summarizes the feelings of a dozen black women as they watch Color Purple and Daughters of the Dust, two nominally womanist movies. In the second part, Bobo includes her own essays on why Steven Spielberg's movie betrays Walker's text, etc. This book may feel essentialist and highly unscientific to some readers. However, it was good for what it proposed. I think it would be a nice edition to any collection of texts on women of color or womanism.