In the recent online edition of ARTS (volume 26, number 2), Dr. Brian Bantum reviewed Michelle Elam’s Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium. He describes Elam’s analysis as “brilliant,” and notes that she “offers an important critique of the emerging field of critical mixed-race studies and the consumer niche regarding Black mixed-race identity.” And “most critically, Elam highlights the critical illusion at the heart of so many mixed-race rhetorics: a post-racial fallacy of de-historicity that is grounded in a ‘peculiarly late-capitalist consumerist response to the political murkiness of racial difference’ (1).”
“The Souls of Mixed Folk examines representations of mixed race in literature and the arts that redefine new millennial aesthetics and politics. Focusing on black-white mixes, Elam analyzes expressive works – novels, drama, graphic narrative, late-night television, art installations – as artistic rejoinders to the perception that post-Civil Rights politics are bereft and post-Black art is apolitical. Reorienting attention to the cultural invention of mixed race from the social sciences to the humanities, Elam considers the creative work of Lezley Saar, Aaron McGruder, Nate Creekmore, Danzy Senna, Colson Whitehead, Emily Raboteau, Carl Hancock Rux, and Dave Chappelle. All these writers and artists address mixed race as both an aesthetic challenge and a social concern, and together, they gesture toward a poetics of social justice for the ‘mulatto millennium.’" – Amazon
ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies is “a journal of the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (SARTS)” and it is “devoted specifically to the role of the arts in theological education and religious studies while also serving clergy, artists, and laity interested in the religion and arts dialogue.” It is “published by the Religion and the Arts Program at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas.” – ARTS
To read Dr. Bantum’s full review, click here.
For a more comprehensive synopsis of Dr. Bantum's publications, please visit his faculty profile.
Posted: Monday, October 12, 2015