{"product_id":"crossing-black-sika-dagbovie-mullins-9781572339323","title":"Crossing B(l)Ack: Mixed-Race Identity in Modern American Fiction and Culture","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe past two decades have seen a growing influx of biracial discourse in fiction, memoir, and theory, and since the 2008 election of Barack Obama to the presidency, debates over whether America has entered a \"post-racial\" phase have set the media abuzz. In this penetrating and provocative study, Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins adds a new dimension to this dialogue as she investigates the ways in which various mixed-race writers and public figures have redefined both \"blackness\" and \"whiteness\" by invoking multiple racial identities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFocusing on several key novels--Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928), Lucinda Roy's Lady Moses (1998), and Danzy Senna's Caucasia (1998)--as well as memoirs by Obama, James McBride, and Rebecca Walker and the personae of singer Mariah Carey and actress Halle Berry, Dagbovie-Mullins challenges conventional claims about biracial identification with a concept she calls \"black-sentient mixed-race identity.\" Whereas some multiracial organizations can diminish blackness by, for example, championing the inclusion of multiple-race options on census forms and similar documents, a black-sentient consciousness stresses a perception rooted in blackness--\"a connection to a black consciousness,\" writes the author, \"that does not overdetermine but still plays a large role in one's racial identification.\" By examining the nuances of this concept through close readings of fiction, memoir, and the public images of mixed-race celebrities, Dagbovie-Mullins demonstrates how a \"black-sentient mixed-race identity reconciles the widening separation between black\/white mixed race and blackness that has been encouraged by contemporary mixed-race politics and popular culture.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA book that promises to spark new debate and thoughtful reconsiderations of an especially timely topic, Crossing B(l)ack recognizes and investigates assertions of a black-centered mixed-race identity that does not divorce a premodern racial identity from a postmodern racial fluidity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Sika Dagbovie-Mullins\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1572339322\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781572339323\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Tennessee Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/30\/2013\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 184\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.85lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.20h x 6.20w x 0.80d","brand":"Sika Dagbovie-Mullins","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":49082825146623,"sku":"9781572339323","price":37.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/crossing-black-sika-dagbovie-mullins-9781572339323","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}