Forms of Whiteness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2022
The through line of American history is a persistent trauma of dispossession epitomized in W. E. B. DuBois’s prescient words: “I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth, forever and forever, Amen!” This form of whiteness is also the defining feature of the contemporary maelstrom of racial unrest. To acquiesce to only one form of whiteness locks the racialized reader into a narrow, overdetermined praxis aligned with proprietary aggression. This book is, however, rooted in a creative and emancipatory set of antiracist possibilities. These alternate possibilities are assigned the term "forms of whiteness" as a re-imagining of the reader’s positionality in the culture and the world; a resolve to grapple with the multiple ways of disassociating from the malignant monopoly of systemic whiteness; and a determination to undo patterns and practices of denial and discrimination within literary studies. Building on the conclusions of Chapter 5, the Epilogue meditates more fully on scholarly practice within an ethics of coaction that translates research and pedagogic inquiry into lived experience and public life.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.