Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film before World War II / Edition 1

by Cedric J. Robinson

Overview

Cedric J. Robinson offers a new understanding of race in America through his analysis of theater and film of the early twentieth century. He argues that economic, political, and cultural forces present in the eras of silent film and the early "talkies" firmly entrenched limited representations of African Americans.

Robinson grounds his study in contexts that illuminate the parallel growth of racial beliefs and capitalism, beginning with Shakespearean England and the development of international trade. He demonstrates how the needs of American commerce determined the construction of successive racial regimes that were publicized in the theater and in motion pictures, particularly through plantation and jungle films. In addition to providing new depth and complexity to the history of black representation, Robinson examines black resistance to these practices. Whereas D. W. Griffith appropriated black minstrelsy and romanticized a national myth of origins, Robinson argues that Oscar Micheaux transcended uplift films to create explicitly political critiques of the American national myth. Robinson's analysis marks a new way of approaching the intellectual, political, and media racism present in the beginnings of American narrative cinema.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807858417
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	12/17/2007
Edition description:	1
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.01(d)

About the Author

Cedric J. Robinson (1940-2016) was professor of Black Studies and political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is author of four other books, including Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (from the University of North Carolina Press).

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

One of the most important resources in years, this book is already a classic.—CHOICE

This ambitious project, grounded in a broad historicity, will elicit some dissent, but Robinson's first-rate scholarship will be difficult to counter and will stand the test of time.—American Historical Review

Robinson's assertions that capitalists controlled and manipulated the image of blackness . . . are a very important contribution.—Journal of Southern History

A complex, thoughtful perspective on the protean nature of American culture and those who profited and suffered from its progression.—Journal of American History

There is nothing like this book. At once a magnificent work of social and cultural history, an anthropology of race, and a political economy of racial capitalism and Empire, this is the most original examination of the American film industry ever published. But like all of Robinson's work, Forgeries of Memory and Meaning does much more, extending over three centuries to reconstruct the roots of modern black representation in the works of Shakespeare, scientific discourse, and early minstrelsy. And his prodigious research has uncovered celluloid gems and theater works I never knew existed.—Robin D. G. Kelley, University of Southern California

Careful, exhaustive scholarship and densely packed argumentation. . . . One of the most important resources in years, this book is already a classic. . . . Essential.—CHOICE

Cedric Robinson provides us with a distinctive and distinguished intervention in discussions of race, representation, and performance in American cinema and theater before World War II. This informative and engaging study offers an array of new and unexpected insights.—Charles Musser, Yale University

Robinson explores an impressive variety of important films, sustaining his discussion with fresh, insightful angles on the political economy of each film. This book makes a significant contribution to several interwoven, discursive currents involving race and representation, social Darwinism and scientific racism, minstrelsy and modernism, the plantation and the jungle, and black cultural and political resistance to several 'racial regimes' working themselves out in politics, media, and the cinema in America.—Ed Guerrero, New York University

Editorial Reviews

Deeply incisive. . . . Provides a fresh contribution to one of the most significant aspects of American cinema.—The Journal of African American History

Invaluable to scholars of popular culture, Marxist studies, and especially, black studies. . . . [Robinson] writes with the seldom-heard acumen of a social scientist and is able to discern how and why the American entertainment industry represents—and misrepresents—class and race.—North Carolina Historical Review

Offers a copiously researched and compelling study. . . . A profoundly important and elegantly written historical study of a great artistic conflict.—Theatre Research International

A call to action.—National Political Science Review

From the Publisher