Understanding Blackness through Performance: Contemporary Arts and the Representation of Identity

International audienceHow does the performance of blackness reframe issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality? Resistance and redeployment strategies inform the world of black theatre, performance, and theory, generating a multiplicity of positions from an intersectional perspective. Here, the contributors look into representational practices in film, music, literature, sculpture, video, vaudeville, fashion, and theatre and explore how they have fleshed out political struggles, while recognizing that they have sometimes maintained the mechanisms of violence against blacks. These practices have opened up new territories that require scrutiny today.Contents :- Introduction. Black Beings, Black Embodyings: Notes on Contemporary Artistic Performances and their Cultural InterpretationsJean-Paul Rocchi (Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France) with Anne Crémieux (Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre, France) and Xavier Lemoine (Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France)Part I. Black Being, Black Embodying: the Power of Auto-ethnography- Each Taking Risk, Performing Self: Theorizing (Dis)NarrativesMyron Beasley (Bates College, USA)- Transformative Womanist Rhetorical Strategies: Contextualizing Discourse and the Performance of Black Bodies of DesireToniesha L. Taylor (Communication Prairie View A & M University, USA)- “Is Anybody Walkin’?”: the Black Body on the Runway as a Performance of the Politics of DesireGayle Baldwin (University of North Dakota, USA)Part II. Shattered Frames and the Onlooker: Strategies and Significations- Transgressive (Re)presentations: Black Women, Vaudeville and the Politics of Performance in Early Trans-Atlantic TheatreZakiya R. Adair (University of Missouri, USA)- Kara Walker’s War on Racism: Mining (Mis)Representations of Blackness Vanina Géré (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, France)- Between Mumblecore and Post-Black Aesthetics: Barry Jenkins’s Medicine for MelancholySimon Dickel (Ruhr-University, Germany)- From Book to Film: Desire in Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009), adapted from Push by Sapphire (1995)Anne Crémieux (Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre, France)Part III. Through Performance: Desire and the Black Subject- Black Queer Studies, Freedom and Other Human PossibilitiesRinaldo Walcott (University of Toronto, Canada)- About Face, or, What Is This “Back” in B(l)ack Popular Culture?: From Venus Hottentot to Video HottieMae G. Henderson (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA)- Margin Me: Intentional Marginality in the Queered Borderlands of HiphopStephany Spaulding (University of Colorado, USA)Part IV. Shifting Paradigms of Identities- Sculpting Black Queer Bodies and Desires: The Case of Richmond BarthéJames Smalls (University of Maryland, USA)- I Am Not a Race Man: Racial Uplift and the Post-Black Aesthetic in Percival Everett’s I Am Not Sidney PoitierKristin Leigh Moriah (City University of New York, USA)- Embodying Hybridity: Anna Deavere Smith’s Identity Cross-OversXavier Lemoine (Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France)Cet ouvrage se propose d’étudier les reconfigurations contemporaines des identités plurielles relevant de la race, de la classe sociale, du genre et des sexualités à travers le prisme des expressions artistiques et culturelles noires américaines et diasporiques. C’est une résistance sans cesse renouvelée, multipliant les perspectives croisées, qui caractérise le théâtre et les arts visuels et performatifs noirs mais aussi la théorisation dont ils font l’objet. Understanding Blackness through Performance se penche sur la représentation des Noirs et des cultures noires dans le cinéma, la musique, la littérature, la vidéo, le théâtre et le vaudeville ou la mode afin de comprendre ce que le combat politique pour l’émancipation et l’égalité doit à ces pratiques quand elles n’ont pas été dévoyées au service de la violence contre les Noirs. Lire de telles pratiques, en saisir les enjeux à partir des nouveaux espaces culturels, artistiques et épistémologiques qu’elles déploient, est une exigence actuelle à laquelle cet ouvrage collectif veut répondre.Sommaire :- Introduction. Black Beings, Black Embodyings: Notes on Contemporary Artistic Performances and their Cultural InterpretationsJean-Paul Rocchi (Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France) with Anne Crémieux (Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre, France) and Xavier Lemoine (Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France)Partie I. Black Being, Black Embodying: the Power of Auto-ethnography- Each Taking Risk, Performing Self: Theorizing (Dis)NarrativesMyron Beasley (Bates College, Etats-Unis)- Transformative Womanist Rhetorical Strategies: Contextualizing Discourse and the Performance of Black Bodies of DesireToniesha L. Taylor (Communication Prairie View A & M University, Etats-Unis)- “Is Anybody Walkin’?”: the Black Body on the Runway as a Performance of the Politics of DesireGayle Baldwin (University of North Dakota, Etats-Unis)Partie II. Shattered Frames and the Onlooker: Strategies and Significations- Transgressive (Re)presentations: Black Women, Vaudeville and the Politics of Performance in Early Trans-Atlantic TheatreZakiya R. Adair (University of Missouri, Etats-Unis)- Kara Walker’s War on Racism: Mining (Mis)Representations of Blackness Vanina Géré (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, France)- Between Mumblecore and Post-Black Aesthetics: Barry Jenkins’s Medicine for MelancholySimon Dickel (Ruhr-University, Allemagne)- From Book to Film: Desire in Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009), adapted from Push by Sapphire (1995)Anne Crémieux (Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre, France)Partie III. Through Performance: Desire and the Black Subject- Black Queer Studies, Freedom and Other Human PossibilitiesRinaldo Walcott (University of Toronto, Canada)- About Face, or, What Is This “Back” in B(l)ack Popular Culture?: From Venus Hottentot to Video HottieMae G. Henderson (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Etats-Unis)- Margin Me: Intentional Marginality in the Queered Borderlands of HiphopStephany Spaulding (University of Colorado, Etats-Unis)Partie IV. Shifting Paradigms of Identities- Sculpting Black Queer Bodies and Desires: The Case of Richmond BarthéJames Smalls (University of Maryland, Etats-Unis)- I Am Not a Race Man: Racial Uplift and the Post-Black Aesthetic in Percival Everett’s I Am Not Sidney PoitierKristin Leigh Moriah (City University of New York, Etats-Unis)- Embodying Hybridity: Anna Deavere Smith’s Identity Cross-OversXavier Lemoine (Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France