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Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body
"Young's linkage between critical race theory, historical inquiry, and performance studies is a necessary intersection. Innovative, creative, and provocative."
---Davarian Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Trinity College In 1901, George Ward, a lynching victim, was attacked, murdered, and dismembered by a mob of white men, women, and children. As his lifeless body burned in a fire, enterprising white youth cut off his toes and, later, his fingers and sold them as souvenirs. In Embodying Black Experience , Harvey Young masterfully blends biography, archival history, performance theory, and phenomenology to relay the experiences of black men and women who, like Ward, were profoundly affected by the spectacular intrusion of racial violence within their lives. Looking back over the past two hundred years---from the exhibition of boxer Tom Molineaux and Saartjie Baartman (the "Hottentot Venus") in 1810 to twenty-first century experiences of racial profiling and incarceration---Young chronicles a set of black experiences, or what he calls, "phenomenal blackness," that developed not only from the experience of abuse but also from a variety of performances of resistance that were devised to respond to the highly predictable and anticipated arrival of racial violence within a person's lifetime. Embodying Black Experience pinpoints selected artistic and athletic performances---photography, boxing, theater/performance art, and museum display---as portals through which to gain access to the lived experiences of a variety of individuals. The photographs of Joseph Zealy, Richard Roberts, and Walker Evans; the boxing performances of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali; the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks, Robbie McCauley, and Dael Orlandersmith; and the tragic performances of Bootjack McDaniels and James Cameron offer insight into the lives of black folk across two centuries and the ways that black artists, performers, and athletes challenged the racist (and racializing) assumptions of the societies in which they lived. Blending humanistic and social science perspectives, Embodying Black Experience explains the ways in which societal ideas of "the black body," an imagined myth of blackness, get projected across the bodies of actual black folk and, in turn, render them targets of abuse. However, the emphasis on the performances of select artists and athletes also spotlights moments of resistance and, indeed, strength within these most harrowing settings. Harvey Young is Associate Professor of Theatre, Performance Studies, and Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University. A volume in the series Theater: Theory/Text/Performance
---Davarian Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Trinity College In 1901, George Ward, a lynching victim, was attacked, murdered, and dismembered by a mob of white men, women, and children. As his lifeless body burned in a fire, enterprising white youth cut off his toes and, later, his fingers and sold them as souvenirs. In Embodying Black Experience , Harvey Young masterfully blends biography, archival history, performance theory, and phenomenology to relay the experiences of black men and women who, like Ward, were profoundly affected by the spectacular intrusion of racial violence within their lives. Looking back over the past two hundred years---from the exhibition of boxer Tom Molineaux and Saartjie Baartman (the "Hottentot Venus") in 1810 to twenty-first century experiences of racial profiling and incarceration---Young chronicles a set of black experiences, or what he calls, "phenomenal blackness," that developed not only from the experience of abuse but also from a variety of performances of resistance that were devised to respond to the highly predictable and anticipated arrival of racial violence within a person's lifetime. Embodying Black Experience pinpoints selected artistic and athletic performances---photography, boxing, theater/performance art, and museum display---as portals through which to gain access to the lived experiences of a variety of individuals. The photographs of Joseph Zealy, Richard Roberts, and Walker Evans; the boxing performances of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali; the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks, Robbie McCauley, and Dael Orlandersmith; and the tragic performances of Bootjack McDaniels and James Cameron offer insight into the lives of black folk across two centuries and the ways that black artists, performers, and athletes challenged the racist (and racializing) assumptions of the societies in which they lived. Blending humanistic and social science perspectives, Embodying Black Experience explains the ways in which societal ideas of "the black body," an imagined myth of blackness, get projected across the bodies of actual black folk and, in turn, render them targets of abuse. However, the emphasis on the performances of select artists and athletes also spotlights moments of resistance and, indeed, strength within these most harrowing settings. Harvey Young is Associate Professor of Theatre, Performance Studies, and Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University. A volume in the series Theater: Theory/Text/Performance
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 28, 2010
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November 27, 2015
It's easy to state where this book lost me. While I do believe the introduction and first chapter on "The Black Body," offers a detailed and concise definition of Blackness, I remain unconvinced with Young's articulation of stillness and performance in photography. Young argues that the portraits of first generation freed Black Americans convey time stopping and further argues that the Middle passage (philosophically speaking that is) is not about movement but about remaining still (p. 42). I would certainly like to agree with Young here but I think that these two examples are poor ones as even if stillness and or the freezing of motion is at play with either the Middle Passage or the portrait, it's hard to overlook the fact that both examples are still bound in movement. The middle passage with the moving ship and continued travel at sea and land and the photograph with the photograph haptic mobility of traveling from the photographer to the one photographed.
In addition, I found the third chapter to be out of place with the rest of the context of the book. While the research is academically rigorous the context of boxing, this chapter offered no theorization on performance or photography and was in fact all about movement through both time and space. With that chapter, I found Young to be unclear in his agenda on what to focus on when it came to understanding the Black body. I understand that their are many ways to approach this concept but I found that it would have proven to be a richer argument if he would have narrowed his argument a bit.
In addition, I found the third chapter to be out of place with the rest of the context of the book. While the research is academically rigorous the context of boxing, this chapter offered no theorization on performance or photography and was in fact all about movement through both time and space. With that chapter, I found Young to be unclear in his agenda on what to focus on when it came to understanding the Black body. I understand that their are many ways to approach this concept but I found that it would have proven to be a richer argument if he would have narrowed his argument a bit.
Displaying 1 of 1 review