Authentic Blackness - Real Blackness: Essays on the Meaning of Blackness in Literature and Culture

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Authentic Blackness - Real Blackness explores and explains the idea of authenticity, of keeping it real, as it relates to the multi-faceted meanings of blackness in the United States and the world. Including reflections on hip-hop, comedy, literature, intellectual history, and autobiography, the collection gives both a broad overview of and intervenes in the debates concerning blackness. A comprehensive introductory essay outlines the history of the idea of authentic blackness, while other chapters examine the contours of blackness in Canada and Jamaica; the relationship between middle-class status and real blackness; the link between blackness and hip-hop culture; Dave Chappelle’s comedy; and the work of James Baldwin, Countee Cullen, Clarence Major, and John Edgar Wideman as it comments on authenticity in relation to race.