Counterlife: Slavery After Resistance and Social Death (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781478010418)

In Counterlife Christopher Freeburg poses a question to contemporary studies of slavery and its aftereffects: what if freedom, agency, and domination weren't the overarching terms used for thinking about Black life? In pursuit of this question, Freeburg submits that current scholarship is too preoccupied with demonstrating enslaved Africans' acts of political resistance, and instead he considers Black social life beyond such concepts. He examines a rich array of cultural texts that depict slavery--from works by Frederick Douglass, Radcliffe Bailey, and Edward Jones to spirituals, the television cartoon The Boondocks, and Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained--to show how enslaved Africans created meaning through artistic creativity, religious practice, and historical awareness both separate from and alongside concerns about freedom. By arguing for the impossibility of tracing slave subjects solely through their pursuits of freedom, Freeburg reminds readers of the arresting power and beauty that the enigmas of Black social life contain.

Author: Christopher Freeburg
ISBN-10: 147801041X
ISBN-13: 9781478010418
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/08/2021
Pages: 152
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.56d