1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910788366503321

Autore

Harrison-Kahan Lori

Titolo

The white negress [[electronic resource] ] : literature, minstrelsy, and the black-Jewish imaginary / / Lori Harrison-Kahan

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick, N.J., : Rutgers University Press, 2011

ISBN

1-283-86420-7

0-8135-4989-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (240 p.)

Collana

American Literatures Initiative

Disciplina

810.9/3529

Soggetti

American literature - 20th century - History and criticism

Passing (Identity) in literature

Women and literature - United States - History - 20th century

Ethnicity in literature

African American women authors

Jewish women authors - United States

Americanization

Immigrants in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

From White Negress to Yiddishe mama:  Sophie Tucker and the female blackface tradition -- The same Show Boat:  Edna Ferber's interracial ideal -- Limitations of white:  Fannie Hurst and the consumption of blackness -- Minstrel of the mountain:  Zora Neale Hurston and the black-Jewish imaginary.

Sommario/riassunto

During the first half of the twentieth century, American Jews demonstrated a commitment to racial justice as well as an attraction to African American culture. Until now, the debate about whether such black-Jewish encounters thwarted or enabled Jews' claims to white privilege has focused on men and representations of masculinity while ignoring questions of women and femininity. The White Negress investigates literary and cultural texts by Jewish and African American women, opening new avenues of inquiry that yield more complex stories about Jewishness, African American identity, and the meanings of whiteness. Lori Harrison-Kahan examines writings by Edna Ferber,



Fannie Hurst, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as the blackface performances of vaudevillian Sophie Tucker and controversies over the musical and film adaptations of Show Boat and Imitation of Life. Moving between literature and popular culture, she illuminates how the dynamics of interethnic exchange have at once produced and undermined the binary of black and white.