Description
Book SynopsisIn
On Racial Icons, Nicole R. Fleetwood focuses a sustained look on photography in documenting black public life, exploring the ways in which iconic images function as celebrations of national and racial progress at times or as a gauge of collective racial wounds in moments of crisis.
Trade Review"Nicole Fleetwood’s astute study makes transparent the power of images and strengthens our understanding as to how significant black figures transformed our imaginary as a fixed construction based on media perceptions. An impressive read!" -- Deborah Willis * New York University *
Nicole R. Fleetwood calls her latest book
"an act of love." But readers may end up referring to it as tough love as
Fleetwoodoffers a searing investigation into America's fixation on black images from President Obama to a living legend of tennis, Serena Williams. With the author's definition of 'racial icons' as "an idolized image or figure, that is simultaneously shrouded in the legacies of U.S. racism and its devaluing of black life," the book aims to unpack the multiple implications of black images both seen and unseen. < Read the nterview at: http://huff.to/1hvYVwM > -- Peter 'Souleo' Wright * Huffington Post *
"With
On Racial Icons: Blackness and the Public Imagination, Nicole Fleetwood examines the emotional work and cultural meanings of black icons especially the place of veneration, condescension, celebrity, and commodification in the production of photographic images of Barack Obama, Diana Ross, Trayvon Martin, Serena Williams, and LeBron James. Accessible and concise, yet sensitive and insightful, Fleetwood invites us to dwell in the spaces where black iconic images circulate, to feel the hopes they gather, to understand the conflicts they engender, and above all to appreciate the implications they suggest for how we see ourselves." -- Herman Gray * University of California, Santa Cruz *
“An innovative and dynamic study of blackness, iconicity, and visual culture. It is the conceptual arc of the book –an accruing examination of the meanings of the racial icon—that makes this study so effective. Fleetwood’s focus of visual culture as public culture makes On Racial Icons an extraordinary resource for the interdisciplinary teaching and study of African American studies, American studies, visual culture studies, and media studies.”
* ALH Review *
Nicole R. Fleetwood calls her latest book
"an act of love." But readers may end up referring to it as tough love as
Fleetwoodoffers a searing investigation into America's fixation on black images from President Obama to a living legend of tennis, Serena Williams. With the author's definition of 'racial icons' as "an idolized image or figure, that is simultaneously shrouded in the legacies of U.S. racism and its devaluing of black life," the book aims to unpack the multiple implications of black images both seen and unseen. < Read the nterview at: http://huff.to/1hvYVwM > -- Peter 'Souleo' Wright * Huffington Post *
"Nicole Fleetwood’s astute study makes transparent the power of images and strengthens our understanding as to how significant black figures transformed our imaginary as a fixed construction based on media perceptions. An impressive read!" -- Deborah Willis * New York University *
"With
On Racial Icons: Blackness and the Public Imagination, Nicole Fleetwood examines the emotional work and cultural meanings of black icons especially the place of veneration, condescension, celebrity, and commodification in the production of photographic images of Barack Obama, Diana Ross, Trayvon Martin, Serena Williams, and LeBron James. Accessible and concise, yet sensitive and insightful, Fleetwood invites us to dwell in the spaces where black iconic images circulate, to feel the hopes they gather, to understand the conflicts they engender, and above all to appreciate the implications they suggest for how we see ourselves." -- Herman Gray * University of California, Santa Cruz *
An innovative and dynamic study of blackness, iconicity, and visual culture. It is the conceptual arc of the book –an accruing examination of the meanings of the racial icon—that makes this study so effective. Fleetwood’s focus of visual culture as public culture makes On Racial Icons an extraordinary resource for the interdisciplinary teaching and study of African American studies, American studies, visual culture studies, and media studies. * ALH Review *
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: “I Am Trayvon Martin”: The Boy who Became an Icon
Chapter Two: Democracy’s Promise: The Black Political Leader as Icon
Chapter Three: Giving Face: Diana Ross and the Black Celebrity as Icon
Chapter Four: The Black Athlete: Racial Precarity and the American Sports Icon
Coda
Index
About the Author
