Description
Book SynopsisIn
Skin Acts, Michelle Ann Stephens explores the work of four iconic twentieth-century black male performers—Bert Williams, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, and Bob Marley—to reveal how racial and sexual difference is both marked by and experienced in the skin.
Trade Review“In
Skin Acts, Michelle Ann Stephens provides a valuable contribution to the study of race and representation by offering a thorough account of the relationship between black skin and white gaze and the production of difference in twentieth-century US popular culture.” -- Brandi T. Summers * Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies *
"
Skin Acts provides highly productive discourses for anyone interested in black cultural studies, performance theory, and/or racialization." -- Lia T. Bascomb * Contemporary Theatre Review *
"The book is well written and rich with analytic detail regarding each of the four case studies, particularly through the use of visual materials.
Skin Acts is a valuable contribution to the literatures of race, psychoanalytic theory, masculinity, and performance." -- Devon R. Goss * Men and Masculinities *
"
Skin Acts is an ambitious and well-researched study that anyone interested in the intersections of psychoanalysis and critical race theory should read." -- Rocío Pichon-Rivière * e-misférica *
"By pushing the reader to think about how multiple sites of self-definition and societal gaze create the racial, bodily landscape of the black masculine performer, Stephens makes an important contribution to black masculinity studies and performance studies, and articulates the importance for the field of skin studies. Stephens’s interdisciplinary project effortlessly blends performance theory, psychoanalysis, and historical theories of race, corporeality, and physiognomy to produce an accessible framework for understanding black masculine performers in the twentieth century." -- Brandon J. Manning * Callaloo *
Table of ContentsPreface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. Fleshing Out the Act 1
1. Seeing Faces, Hearing Signs 31
2. Bodylines, Borderlines, Color Lines 71
3. The Problem of Color 111
4. In the Flesh, Living Sound 153
Conclusion. Defacing Race, Rethinking the Skin 191
Notes 205
Bibliography 259
Index 273
