Title: The construction of whiteness : an interdisciplinary analysis of race formation and the meaning of a white identity /
Authors: Middleton, Stephen; Roediger, David R.; Shaffer, Donald M., 1974-
Year: 2016
Subjects: White people Race identity United States; Race relations; Whites Race identity; United States Race relations; United States
Abstract: "This volume collects interdisciplinary essays that examine the crucial intersection between whiteness as a privileged racial category and the various material practices (social, cultural, political, and economic) that undergird white ideological influence in America. In truth, the need to examine whiteness as a problem has rarely been grasped outside academic circles. The ubiquity of whiteness--its pervasive quality as an ideal that is at once omnipresent and invisible--makes it the very epitome of the mainstream in America. And yet the undeniable relationship between whiteness and inequality in this country necessitates a thorough interrogation of its formation, its representation, and its reproduction. Essays here seek to do just that work. Editors and contributors interrogate whiteness as a social construct, revealing the underpinnings of narratives that foster white skin as an ideal of beauty, intelligence, and power. Contributors examine whiteness from several disciplinary perspectives, including history, communication, law, sociology, and literature. Its breadth and depth makes The Construction of Whiteness a refined introduction to the critical study of race for a new generation of scholars, undergraduates, and graduate students. Moreover, the interdisciplinary approach of the collection will appeal to scholars in African and African American studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, legal studies, and more. This collection delivers an important contribution to the field of whiteness studies in its multifaceted impact on American history and culture"--Provided by publisher.
Contents: The battle over racial identity in popular and legal cultures, 1810-1860 / Stephen Middleton -- Restitution claims for wrongful enslavement and the doctrine of the master's good faith / Robert Westley -- Emancipation from whiteness: witnessing disability and jubilee / David R. Roediger -- Whiteness in the twenty-first century: the decline of one-drop reasoning in jurisprudence after 1980 / Erica Cooper -- Charles W. Chesnutt, whiteness, and the problem of citizenship / Donald M. Shaffer -- Making whiteness in reenactments of slavery / Sadhana Bery -- About Schmidt's whiteness: the emotional landscapes of WASP masculinity / Tim Engles -- Hegemonic whiteness : from structure and agency to identity allegiance / Matthew W. Hughey -- Theorizing white racial trauma and its remedies / Becky Thompson and Veronica T. Watson.