Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory

by Michele Wallace

Overview

First published in 1990, Michele Wallace’s Invisibility Blues is widely regarded as a landmark in the history of black feminism.

Wallace’s considerations of the black experience in America include recollections of her early life in Harlem; a look at the continued underrepresentation of black voices in politics, media, and culture; and the legacy of such figures as Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison,and Alice Walker. Wallace addresses the tensions between race, gender, and society, bringing them into the open with a singular mix of literary virtuosity and scholarly rigor. Invisibility Blues challenges and informs with the plain-spoken truth that has made it an acknowledged classic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786631954
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	11/08/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michele Wallace is currently Professor of English at CUNY’s Graduate Center and City College. She is a leading black feminist cultural critic and writer. She is the author of numerous books, including Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman.

Editorial Reviews

One of the most talented and provocative cultural critics now writing in the USA. Listen and learn!”
—Cornel West

“Michele Wallace keeps her eyes open and her wits about her. Scrupulously fair, honest, funny, clever, wise.”
—Angela Carter

“Invisibility Blues shows why Michele Wallace has long been at the forefront of African-American cultural criticism.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“Invisibility Blues is a warm book, even a hopeful one. Simultaneously confident and vulnerable, full of hard-earned insights into American culture and un-starry-eyed evaluations of the available role models, it is the unfinished saga of a proud outsider trying to make a place for herself and her sisters.”
—Lucy R. Lippard

“Courageous … outspoken … clear-eyed.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Wonderful … original.”
—Susan Brown Miller

From the Publisher

In these 24 essays, written from 1972 to 1990, the author aims to ``comprehend the high visibility '' of black women in American culture ``together with their almost total lack of voice . '' This perspective necessarily gives her a different viewpoint than that of white middle-class feminists. Many of the essays reflect ideas first developed in her previous work, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman ( LJ 3/1/79), which is being republished in tandem with this new book. Wallace combines the techniques of autobiography and literary criticism with allusions to pop culture and the women of her acquaintance (such as her artist mother, Faith Ringgold) to create a rich, impassioned social commentary. A valuable work for both public and academic collections.-- Janice Braun, Medical Historical Lib . , Yale Univ.

Library Journal