{"product_id":"the-racial-imaginary-claudia-rankine-9781934200797","title":"The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"To think of creativity in terms of transcendence is itself specific and partial--a lovely dream perhaps, but an inhuman one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"It is not only white writers who make a prize of transcendence, of course. Many writers of all backgrounds see the imagination as ahistorical, as a generative place where race doesn't and shouldn't enter, a place of bodies that transcend the legislative, the economic--in other words, transcend the stuff that doesn't lend itself much poetry. In this view the imagination is postracial, a posthistorical and postpolitical utopia. . . . To bring up race for these writers is to inch close to the anxious space of affirmative action, the scarring qualifieds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"So everyone is here.\"--Claudia Rankine and Beth Loffreda, from the introduction\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 2011, a poem published in a national magazine by a popular white male poet made use of a black female body. A conversation ensued, and ended. Claudia Rankine subsequently created Open Letter, a web forum for writers to relate the effects and affects of racial difference and to explore art's failure, thus far, to adequately imagine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorn in Kingston, Jamaica, \u003cb\u003eClaudia Rankine\u003c\/b\u003e is author and editor of more than six collections of poetry and poetics. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a professor of English at Pomona College.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBeth Loffreda\u003c\/b\u003e is author of \u003ci\u003eLosing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-gay Murder\u003c\/i\u003e. She directs the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Wyoming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Claudia Rankine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1934200794\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781934200797\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Fence Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/31\/2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.80lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.40h x 6.50w x 0.80d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/20\/2015\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Claudia Rankine","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44048124412159,"sku":"9781934200797","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_20e17b1b-797b-48a0-a6fe-6315289bef9f.jpg?v=1684994029","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-racial-imaginary-claudia-rankine-9781934200797","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}