In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era

by Richard Iton

Overview

Prior to the 1960s, when African Americans had little access to formal political power, black popular culture was commonly seen as a means of forging community and effecting political change.

But as Richard Iton shows in this provocative and insightful volume, despite the changes brought about by the civil rights movement, and contrary to the wishes of those committed to narrower conceptions of politics, black artists have continued to play a significant role in the making and maintenance of critical social spaces. Iton offers an original portrait of the relationship between popular culture and institutionalized politics tracing the connections between artists such as Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Pryor, Bob Marley, and Erykah Badu and those individuals working in the protest, electoral, and policy making arenas. With an emphasis on questions of class, gender and sexuality-and diaspora and coloniality-the author also illustrates how creative artists destabilize modern notions of the proper location of politics, and politics itself.

Ranging from theater to film, and comedy to literature and contemporary music, In Search of the Black Fantastic is an engaging and sophisticated examination of how black popular culture has challenged our understandings of the aesthetic and its relationship to politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195178463
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/06/2008
Series:	Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Richard Iton is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the winner of the 2009 Ralph Bunche Award for In Search of the Black Fantastic, and the 2001 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award and 2000 Best Book Award on the Social, Cultural, and Ideological Construction of Race from the American Political Science Association for Solidarity Blues: Race, Culture, and the American Left .

Table of Contents

1. Known Rivers / New Forms
2. Remembering the Family: The Cold War and Black Cultural Politics
3. Nation Time and the Black Ironic: Temporality and Its Discontents
4. Let Them Only See Us: The Politics of Representation and the Black Superpublic
5. Variations on the Solidarity Blues: Welfare Policy and the Low End Theory
6. Round Trips on the Black Star Line: Making Foreign Policy in the American Century
7. Not as Others: Colored Discourse and the Levittican Rhythm
8. After the Dance: Adventures in Land of the Bittersweet

Editorial Reviews

Iton (Solidarity Blues) examines the link between black popular culture and black politics, the symbiosis between creative artist and political activist in the post-civil rights era. From Cold War era artists and activists (Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry) to Amiri Baraka; from Ella Fitzgerald to Erykah Badu; Dizzy Gillespie to Nas; Richard Pryor to Chris Rock-Iton traces cultural and political developments, engaging with novelists, filmmakers, musicians, standup comedians and visual artists. Always attentive to the dynamics of sexuality, gender and race roles, Iton's work possesses the depth of wide reading in modernist theory and the breadth of wide-open eyes and ears for the popular. Gargantuan sentences coupled with current critical jargon may deter the general reader, but specialists in popular culture, African-American studies, political science and American studies will find Iton's argument that "political intention adheres to every cultural production" challenging, illuminating and groundbreaking. For both lay reader and academician, it may well "compel a revision of our notions of the political." (June)

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Publishers Weekly

"A fascinating history and analysis of the nexus of black popular culture and activism from the Jazz Age to the hip-hop era...a timely reminder of the significant influence African American artists and entertainers have had on the political front—not necessarily in enacting laws, but in the symbolic impact of words and actions."—Los Angeles Times

"By interweaving many complex issues, In Search of the Black Fantastic moves across the disciplines with ease—politics, history, sociology, American studies, and African American studies—thereby representing one of the most thorough examinations of post-war black culture."—Political Science Quarterly

"Iton's work possesses the depth of wide reading in modernist theory and the breadth of wide-open eyes and ears for the popular... challenging, illuminating and groundbreaking. For both lay reader and academician, it may well 'compel a revision of our notions of the political.'"—Publishers Weekly

"A fresh, meticulously well researched study...The book is grounded in a solid historical base, surveying the dilemmas faced by black artists from the Cold War to the present...I strongly recommend In Search of the Black Fantastic to serious scholars of black literature and culture. By so perceptively engaging the relationship between popular art and the politics of marginalized people, it helps to clear the way to a truer, deeper understanding of an important subject which rarely gets such penetrating analysis."—African American Review

"Brimming with ideas... [In Search of the Black Fantastic] offers thought-provoking insights throughout its 400 pages and will certainly stimulate further work in numerous areas of African American history." —American Historical Review

"Iton has committed what many will see as a double professional sin. He has taken the vernacular cultures of black Atlantic people seriously and has used them to produce this deep and stimulating exploration of their political aspirations and achievements. There are exciting and challenging arguments on every single page of this tour de force."—Paul Gilroy, Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory, London School of Economics

"Richard Iton's book is an impressive work of scholarship, combining dense analyses of black popular culture with rich insights rooted in political theory. It is a superb contribution to our understanding of the political importance of black popular culture."—Robert Gooding-Williams, Ralph and Mary Otis Isham Professor, University of Chicago

"In Search of the Black Fantastic is a bold and thoroughly original exploration of the knotty relationship between politics and popular culture of the black diaspora during and after the civil rights era. In this learned, eloquent, and persuasively argued book, Richard Iton analyzes the transformative power of a stunning array of cultural forms."—Valerie Smith, Director, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University

From the Publisher