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1 - Slavery

from Part I - Histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2022

By
Maisha L. Wester
Edited by
Stephen Shapiro  and
Mark Storey
Stephen Shapiro
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Mark Storey
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Modern Black horror literature and film depict the complex mechanisms of social death threatening contemporary African Americans. Drawing on slavery to metaphorize social death, texts like Linden Hills and Stigmata, films such as The House Invictus and popular media like Lovecraft Country and “This Is America” also reveal how the lure of the American Dream seduces African Americans into colluding in their own suffering and the suffering of others like them. Yet even as slavery is presented as a point of historical horror, it is also presented as a source of ancestral knowledge, as African American artists rewrite the history of Black slave resistance to urge modern audiences to a much needed and long-overdue revolution.

Keywords

American GothicBlack horror fiction and filmslave insurrectionsocial deathancestral resistanceintraracial oppressionsocial/racial revolution
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to American Horror , pp. 15 - 28
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Works Cited

Ballinger, Gill, Lustig, Tim, and Townshend, Dale. “Missing Intertexts: Hannah Craft’s ‘The Bondwoman’s Narrative’ and African American Literary History.” Journal of American Studies 39, no. 2 (2005): 207–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Lori. “The Hidden Meanings behind Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Video.” Inside Edition, youtu.be/kWTBTRGfKew. Accessed May 16, 2021.Google Scholar
Dubey, Madhu. “Speculative Fictions of Slavery.” American Literature 82, no. 4 (2005): 779–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, Pauline. Of One Blood; or, The Hidden Self. Washington Square Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” In Sister Outsider. Crossing Press, 2012. 110–13.Google Scholar
Martin, Robert K., and Savoy, Eric. “Introduction.” In American Gothic: New Interventions in a National Narrative. University of Iowa Press, 1998. vii–xii.Google Scholar
Naylor, Gloria. Linden Hills. Penguin Books. 1986.Google Scholar
Poe, Edgar. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Penguin Classics. 1999.Google Scholar
Seabrook, William, The Magic Island, with Introduction by George Romero. Dover Publications, 2016.Google Scholar
Toomer, Jean. Cane. Norton and Company. 2011.Google Scholar
Young, Elizabeth. Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor. New York University Press. 2008.Google Scholar

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  • Slavery
  • Edited by Stephen Shapiro, University of Warwick, Mark Storey, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Horror
  • Online publication: 21 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009071550.003
Available formats
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  • Slavery
  • Edited by Stephen Shapiro, University of Warwick, Mark Storey, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Horror
  • Online publication: 21 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009071550.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

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.

  • Slavery
  • Edited by Stephen Shapiro, University of Warwick, Mark Storey, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Horror
  • Online publication: 21 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009071550.003
Available formats
×