1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910810256203321

Autore

Quashie Kevin Everod

Titolo

The sovereignty of quiet : beyond resistance in Black culture / / Kevin Quashie

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick, N.J., : Rutgers University Press, c2012

ISBN

1-280-69171-9

9786613668653

0-8135-5311-3

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (204 pages)

Disciplina

810.9/896073

Soggetti

American literature - African American authors - History and criticism - Theory, etc

African Americans - Intellectual life

African Americans - Race identity

Identity (Psychology) in literature

Group identity 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

Introduction: Why Quiet -- Publicness, Silence, and the Sovereignty of the Interior -- Not Double Consciousness but the Consciousness of Surrender -- Maud Martha and the Practice of Paying Attention -- Quiet, Vulnerability, and Nationalism -- The Capacities of Waiting, the Expressiveness of Prayer -- Conclusion: To Be One.

Sommario/riassunto

African American culture is often considered expressive, dramatic, and even defiant. In The Sovereignty of Quiet, Kevin Quashie explores quiet as a different kind of expressiveness, one which characterizes a person’s desires, ambitions, hungers, vulnerabilities, and fears. Quiet is a metaphor for the inner life, and as such, enables a more nuanced understanding of black culture. The book revisits such iconic moments as Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and Elizabeth Alexander’s reading at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. Quashie also examines such landmark texts as Gwendolyn Brooks’s Maud Martha, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, and Toni Morrison’s Sula to move beyond the emphasis on resistance,



and to suggest that concepts like surrender, dreaming, and waiting can remind us of the wealth of black humanity.