Exorcising Blackness

Historical and Literary Lynching and Burning Rituals

Trudier Harris author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Indiana University Press

Published:22nd Jan '84

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Exorcising Blackness cover

By lynching, burning, castrating, raping, and mutilating black people, contends Trudier Harris, white Americans were perfomring a rite of exorcism designed to eradicate the "black beast" from their midst, or, at the very least, to render him powerless and emasculated. Black writers have graphically portrayed such tragic incidents in their writings. In doing so, they seem to be acting out a communal role—a perpetuation of an oral tradition bent on the survival of the race.

Exorcising Blackness demonstrates that the closeness and intensity of black people's historical experiences sometimes overshadows, frequently infuses and enhances, and definitely makes richer in texture the art of black writers. By reviewing the historical and literary interconnections of the rituals of exorcism, Harris opens up the hidden psyche—the soul—of black American writers.

ISBN: 9780253319951

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 626g

244 pages