Codes of conduct : race, ethics, and the color of our character

In Codes of Conduct , Karla Holloway meditates on the dynamics of race and ethnicity as they are negotiated in the realms of power. Her uniquely insightful and intelligent analysis guides us in a fresh way through Anita Hill's interrogation, the assault on Tawana Brawley, the mass murders of Atlanta's children, the schisms between the personal and public domains of her life as a black professor, and--in a moving epilogue--the story of her son's difficulties growing up as a young black male in contemporary society. Its three main sections: "The Body Politic," "Language, Thought, and Culture," and "The Moral Lives of Children," relate these issues to the visual power of the black and female body, the aesthetic resonance and racialized drama of language, and our children's precarious habits of surviving. Throughout, Holloway questions the consequences in African-American community life of citizenship that is meted out sparingly when one's ethnicity is colored.

This is a book of a culture's stories--from literature, public life, contemporary and historical events, aesthetic expression, and popular culture--all located within the common ground of African-American ethnicity. Holloway writes with a passion, urgency, and wit that carry the reader swiftly through each chapter. The book should take its place among those other important contemporary works that speak to the future relationships between whites and blacks in this country.

出版社周刊评论

Despite lapses into academic jargon, Holloway, professor of English and African American literature at Duke, makes worthy connections among literature, politics, ethics and race in three long essays. She finds parallels between Anita Hill's Senate testimony and a public examination by white men of black poet Phyllis Wheatley in colonial times. This leads her to personal reflections on how black women, weary of being relegated to demeaning stereotypes, ``turn it out'' and angrily challenge white authority figures. She muses on the language of Maya Angelou's poem for the presidential inaugural and that of Spike Lee's films; then she looks at mainstream media outlets' use of black dialect to disparage blacks and the contradictions in the fact that they simultaneously present gangsta rap. A third essay, on the moral lives of children, discursively argues that we must build a better community for the young. Photos. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus评论

An academic dares to veer from the formality of scholarly prose and talk frankly as a black woman about her experiences in the community, the university, and this nation. Holloway (English and African American Literature/Duke Univ.; Moorings and Metaphors, not reviewed) divides her book into three chapters: ``The Body Politic,'' ``Language, Thought, and Culture,'' and ``The Moral Lives of Children.'' The first discusses what black women have represented in our culture and how the duality of their race and gender has made them examples as well as arbiters of change. Holloway begins, as do many who write about gender today, with Anita Hill. But she shows the breadth and originality of her ideas by comparing Hill's Senate testimony with the trial almost 200 years before of a colonial slave turned poet, Phillis Wheatley. Holloway reminds us that in each instance what was on trial was the woman's low status in society and the lack of credibility given her words, especially when she is being questioned by a white man. Did Wheatley write the verse that stirred the colonies with its sophistication and literary verve? Did Anita Hill tell the truth? For that matter, did Tawana Brawley, or Zora Neale Hurston in her trial on morals charges in the late 1940s? And when Ted Danson put on blackface at the Friars Club and told a sexually explicit, racially biased joke about his lover, Whoopi Goldberg, was she ``a victim of Danson, or a victim of herself''? Again and again, Holloway makes connections among popular culture, history, and literature that create a distinctive, exciting discourse. From her reading of Maya Angelou's inaugural speech through her account of her son's struggles growing up as a young black man, Holloway never hides behind the visage of ``reason'' and third-person voice. Rigorous in its intellectual ponderings, stirring in its personal revelations.

Choice 评论

This work combines literary analysis, political commentary, and autobiographical meditations in a manner that makes a major contribution to the understanding of the cultural significance of race and gender. Drawing on her experience as a black woman teaching at a prestigious mainstream university, Holloway (Duke Univ.) addresses issues with public policy implications much more directly than she has done in the writing that established her reputation in African American literary studies (e.g., The Character of the Word, CH, Sep'87; New Dimensions of Spirituality, CH, Feb'88). Her central thesis is deceptively clear: the reality of racism in the US makes it impossible to separate ethical conduct from ethnic identity. Codes of Conduct makes its real contribution, however, in presenting case studies of African American women, language, and children. Holloway's chapter on how black women's bodies determine political dynamics contains an excellent comparison of the experiences of Anita Hill, Phyllis Wheatley, and Zora Neale Hurston. The one problem with this frequently lyrical book is Holloway's occasional lapses into an arcane academic vocabulary that adds little to her analysis and may alienate some potential readers. Nonetheless, this title adds an important voice to the ongoing discussions of the importance of race and gender in American cultural life. Upper-division undergraduates and above. C. Werner; University of Wisconsin--Madison

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction A Common Sense, a Mother Wit: Reflections on Ethics and Ethnicity	p. 1
Chapter 1 The Body Politic	p. 13
Chapter 2 Language, Thought, and Culture	p. 73
Chapter 3 The Moral Lives of Children	p. 137
Epilogue: A Storied Life	p. 191
Notes	p. 197
Index	p. 215
About the Author	p. 227

可借阅:*

链接这些题名

已订购

摘要

摘要

评论 (3)

出版社周刊评论

Kirkus评论

Choice 评论

目录