The Only Way Out: The Racial and Sexual Performance of Escape (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781478030270)

In The Only Way Out, Katherine Brewer Ball explores the American fascination with the escape story. Brewer Ball argues that escape is a key site for exploring American conceptions of freedom and constraint. Stories of escape are never told just once but become mythic in their episodic iterations, revealing the fantasies and desires of society, the storyteller, and the listener. While white escape narratives have typically been laden with Enlightenment fantasies of redemption where freedom is available to any individual willing to seize it, Brewer Ball explores how Black and queer escape offer forms of radical possibility. Drawing on Black studies, queer theory, and performance studies, she examines a range of works, from nineteenth-century American literature to contemporary queer of color art and writing by contemporary American artists including Wilmer Wilson IV, Tourmaline, Tony Kushner, Junot D?z, Glenn Ligon, Toshi Reagon, and Sharon Hayes. Throughout, escape emerges as a story not of individuality but of collectivity and entanglement.

Author: Katherine Brewer Ball
ISBN-10: 1478030275
ISBN-13: 9781478030270
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/12/2024
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.73lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.51d