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The American Literatures Initiative
The Clay Sanskrit Library
The Collected Works of Walt Whitman
NYU Press
838 Broadway, 3rd Floor
New York, New York 10003
1-800-996-6987
Tel: 212-998-2575
Fax: 212-995-3833
Soul $22.00
"Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure"
Edited by Monique Guillory and Richard Green
ISBN 081473085X
324 pages
Paperback

Release Date: 1997/12/1

Also available in Cloth

No other word in the English language is more endemic to contemporary Black American culture and identity than "Soul". Since the 1960s Soul has been frequently used to market and sell music, food, and fashion. However, Soul also refers to a pervasive belief in the capacity of the Black body/spirit to endure the most trying of times in an ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. While some attention has been given to various genre manifestations of Soul-as in Soul music and food-no book has yet fully explored the discursive terrain signified by the term. In this broad-ranging, free-spirited book, a diverse group of writers, artists, and scholars reflect on the ubiquitous but elusive concept of Soul. Topics include: politics and fashion, Blaxploitation films, language, literature, dance, James Brown, and Schoolhouse Rock. Among the contributors are Angela Davis, Manning Marable, Paul Gilroy, Lyle Ashton Harris, Michelle Wallace, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Manthia Diawara, and dream hampton.


Monique Guillory is a Mellon Fellow in the Department of Comparative Literature at New York University.

Richard C. Green is a Ph.D. candidate in teh Department of Performance Studies at New York University.