Why can a "white" woman give birth to a "black" baby, while a "black" woman can never give birth to a "white" baby in the United States? What makes racial "passing" so different from social mobility? Why are interracial and incestuous relations often confused or conflated in literature, making "miscegenation" appear as if it were incest? Werner Sollors examines these questions and others in this investigation of literary works that, in the past, have been read more for a black-white contrast of "either-or" thatn for an interracial realm of "neither, nor, both and in-between" From the origins of the term "race" to the cultural sources of the "Tragic Mulatto" and from the calculus of colour to the retellings of various plots, this work examines what is known about race, analyzing recurrent motifs in scientific and legal works as well as in fiction, drama and poetry.
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Sollors limns the discourse on race that dominated the world that each text entered, and presents what passed for 'scientific' knowledge at the time, thereby shedding light on the cultural work accomplished by each novel or poem. He also shows how the same basic stories have been retold by different writers, each reshaping and transforming the tale in light of the racial politics of his or her own time...Neither Black nor White yet Both, a stunning achievement, will be of interest to anyone who cares about race and culture.
--Shelley Fisher Fishkin, University of Texas, Austin
Any reader who thinks that novels, plays, and poetry devoted to the tragic mulatto, miscegenation, the code noir, passing, the curse of Ham, and other such themes constitute a mere subgenre in American culture will need to think again. Sollors proves, in voluminous detail, that the various William Faulkners and Nella Larsens now well know in academic circles rest on the vast, deep foundation of a national obsession.
--Eric Sundquist, Northwestern University
--Shelley Fisher Fishkin, University of Texas, Austin
Any reader who thinks that novels, plays, and poetry devoted to the tragic mulatto, miscegenation, the code noir, passing, the curse of Ham, and other such themes constitute a mere subgenre in American culture will need to think again. Sollors proves, in voluminous detail, that the various William Faulkners and Nella Larsens now well know in academic circles rest on the vast, deep foundation of a national obsession.
--Eric Sundquist, Northwestern University
From the Back Cover
Sollors limns the discourse on race that dominated the world that each text entered, and presents what passed for 'scientific' knowledge at the time, thereby shedding light on the cultural work accomplished by each novel or poem. He also shows how the same basic stories have been retold by different writers, each reshaping and transforming the tale in light of the racial politics of his or her own time ...Neither Black nor White yet Both, a stunning achievement, will be of interest to anyone who cares about race and culture.-Shelley Fisher Fishkin, University of Texas, Austin
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent exploration of mixed-race literature,
By A.D. Powell (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Neither Black nor White yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature (Paperback)
Excellent exploration of mixed-race literature.
This book rescues literature by and about mixed-race (Mulattoes and mixed-whites) people from the myth that they are all exotic varieties of "black." The author also gives us the history of common myths about interracial mixture. This book should be read with Lawrence Tenzer's "The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue" because both books emphasize the importance of the "white slave" in abolitionist literature.
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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fingernail motif, sterility hypothesis, interracial literature, tragic octoroon, tragic mulatto, racial sign, biracial characters, racial dualism, maternal impression, racial passing Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Neither Black, United States, The Calculus of Color, New York, The Quadroons, Mark Twain, New Orleans, Natus Albus, Sterling Brown, Charles Chesnutt, Archy Moore, Lydia Maria Child, White Figure, Colonel Moore, The Bluish Tinge, Charles Bon, The Father of Désirée's Baby, Walter White, New World, Moreau de Saint-Méry, Victor Hugo, Old Hepsy, African American, Les Epaves, Black No More Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
fingernail motif, sterility hypothesis, interracial literature, tragic octoroon, tragic mulatto, racial sign, biracial characters, racial dualism, maternal impression, racial passing Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Neither Black, United States, The Calculus of Color, New York, The Quadroons, Mark Twain, New Orleans, Natus Albus, Sterling Brown, Charles Chesnutt, Archy Moore, Lydia Maria Child, White Figure, Colonel Moore, The Bluish Tinge, Charles Bon, The Father of Désirée's Baby, Walter White, New World, Moreau de Saint-Méry, Victor Hugo, Old Hepsy, African American, Les Epaves, Black No More Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
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20
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cite this book:
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- Transamerican Literary Relations and the Nineteenth-Century Public Sphere (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture) by Anna Brickhouse in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- African American Servitude and Historical Imaginings: Retrospective Fiction and Representation by Margaret I. Jordan in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Passing: When People Can't Be Who They Are by Brooke Kroeger in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Surviving the Crossing: (Im)migration, Ethnicity, and Gender in Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, and Nella Larsen (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory) by Jessica Rabin in Back Matter
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