Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader / Edition 1

by Kwesi Owusu

Overview

Black British Culture and Society brings together in one indispensable volume key writings on the Black community in Britain, from the 'Windrush' immigrations of the late 1940s and 1950s to contemporary multicultural Britain. Combining classic writings on Black British life with new, specially commissioned articles, Black British Culture and Society records the history of the post-war African and Caribbean diaspora, tracing the transformations of Black culture in British society.
Black British Culture and Society explores key facets of the Black experience, charting Black Britons'struggles to carve out their own identity and place in an often hostile society. The articles reflect the rich diversity of the Black British experience, addressing economic and social issues such as health, religion, education, feminism, old age, community and race relations, as well as Black culture and the arts, with discussions of performance, carnival, sport, style, literature, theatre, art and film-making. The contributors examine the often tense relationship between successful Black public figures and the media, and address the role of the Black intellectual in public life. Featuring interviews with noted Black artists and writers such as Aubrey Williams, Mustapha Matura and Caryl Phillips, and including articles from key contemporary thinkers, such as Stuart Hall, A. Sivanandan, Paul Gilroy and Henry Louis Gates, Black British Culture and Society provides a rich resource of analysis, critique and comment on the Black community's distinctive contribution to cultural life in Britain today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415178457
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/01/1999
Series:	Comedia
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.62(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1360L (what's this?)

About the Author

Kwesi Owusu is a freelance lecturer, writer and film-maker and editor of Black British Culture and Society.

Table of Contents

Introduction: charting the genealogy of Black British cultural studies SECTION ONE : CLASSIC TEXTS FROM POSTWAR NARRATIVES 1 The 1951–1955 Conservative government and the racialization of Black Immigration 2 The occasion for speaking 3 Timehri 4 The Caribbean community in Britain 5 Destroy this temple 6 The liberation of the Black intellectual 7 White woman listen! Black feminism and the boundaries of sisterhood 8 Woman abuse in London’s Black communities 9 Black hair/style politics 10 Black old age…the diaspora of the senses? 11 Frontlines and backyards: the terms of change SECTION TWO : CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF A BLACK BRITISH CULTURAL DISCOURSE PART 1 12 Double consciousness and the Black British athlete 13 The Final Passage: an interview with writer Caryl Phillips 14 A reporter at large: Black London 15 Birmingham: blades of frustration 16 Home is always elsewhere: individual and communal regenerative capacities of loss PART 2 17 That little magic touch: the headtie and issues around Black British women’s identity 18 Black photographic practice: an interview with Faisal Abdu’ Allah 19 A journey from the cold: rethinking Black film-making in Britain 20 Black art: a discussion with Eddie Chambers 21 Ter speak in yer mudder tongue: an interview with playwright Mustapha Matura 22 The long march from ‘ethnic arts’ to ‘new internationalism’ 23 Dub poet lekka mi: an exploration of performance poetry, power and identity politics in Black Britain 24 Conventional folly: a discussion of English classical theatre PART 3 25 Race, gender and IQ: the social consequence of a pseudo-scientific Discourse 26 Understanding the poorer health of Black people in Britain: revisiting the class and racialization debates 27 Black Britain’s economic power, myth or reality?: an empirical review and analysis of the economic reality of Black Britain 28 Carnival, the state and the Black masses in the United Kingdom PART 4 29 Virginity revamped: representations of female sexuality in the lyrics of Bob Marley and Shabba Ranks 30 Mothers of Africa and the diaspora: shared maternal values among Black Women 31 Black masculinity 32 Mentoring Black males in Manchester: responding to the crisis in education and social alienation SECTION THREE : CULTURAL STUDIES AND BLACK POLITICAL DEBATE 33 Openings, absences and omissions: aspects of the treatment of ‘race’, culture and ethnicity in British cultural studies 34 The formation of a diasporic intellectual: an interview with Stuart Hall 35 The struggle for a radical Black political culture: an interview with A.Sivanandan 36 The Commission for Racial Equality and the politics of race relations: an interview with chairman Sir Herman Ouseley SECTION FOUR : DIASPORA AND NEW TRAJECTORIES OF GLOBALIZATION 37 The Black Atlantic as a counterculture of modernity 38 Journeying to death: Gilroy’s Black Atlantic 39 A conversation with Aubrey Williams 40 Writing home: reconfiguring the (English)-African diaspora 41 Footprints of a mountaineer: Uzo Egonu and the Black redefinition of Modernism 42 Harvesting the folkloric intuition: Ben Okri’s The Famished Road

Editorial Reviews

'This is a groundbreaking anthology of leading analyses of black culture in British society, and an engaging series of debates about what it means to be black and British. Every household should have a copy.' - Sara Taukolonga, The Voice

'The choice is immense, and the rich array of Black British life-experiences covered, is dazzling.' - Muhammed Khalil, Black Arts Alliance

'Students of race and cultural studies should find this a rich source of information as well as inspiration, and are likely to find a variety of chapters of relevance to them and their studies.' - Sage Race Relations Abstracts, August 2000

From the Publisher