Applies a psychoanalytic approach to analyze the black and white characters and authors of five plays by African-American women.

Skin color and skin tone has historically played a significant role in determining the life chances of African Americans and other people of color. It has also been important to our understanding of race and the processes of racialization. But what does the relationship between skin tone and stratification outcomes mean? Is skin tone correlated with stratification outcomes because people with darker complexions experience more discrimination than those of the same race with lighter complexions? Is skin tone differentiation a process that operates external to communities of color and is then imposed on people of color? Or, is skin tone discrimination an internally driven process that is actively aided and abetted by members of communities of color themselves? Color Struck provides answers to these questions. In addition, it addresses issues such as the relationship between skin tone and wealth inequality, anti-black sentiment and whiteness, Twitter culture, marriage outcomes and attitudes, gender, racial identity, civic engagement and politics at predominately White Institutions. Color Struck can be used as required reading for courses on race, ethnicity, religious studies, history, political science, education, mass communications, African and African American Studies, social work, and sociology.

Color Struck: Essays of Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective is a compilation of expositions on race and ethnicity, written from multiple disciplinary approaches including history, sociology, women's studies, and anthropology. This book is organized around a topical, chronological framework and is divided into three sections, beginning with the earliest times to the contemporary world. The term 'race' has nearly become synonymous with the word 'ethnicity,' given the most recent findings in the study of human genetics that have led to the mapping of human DNA. Color Struck attempts to answer questions and provide scholarly insight into issues related to race and ethnicity.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), the most prominent of the Harlem Renaissance women writers, was unique because her social and professional connections were not limited to literature but encompassed theatre, dance, film, anthropology, folklore, music, politics, high society, academia, and artistic bohemia. Hurston published four novels, three books of nonfiction, and dozens of short stories, plays, and essays. In addition, she won a long list of fellowships and prizes, including a Guggenheim and a Rosenwald. Yet by the 1950s, Hurston, like most of her Harlem Renaissance peers, had faded into oblivion. An essay by Alice Walker in the 1970s, however, spurred the revival of Hurston’s literary reputation, and her works, including her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, have enjoyed an enduring popularity. Zora Neale Hurston: An Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism consists of reviews of critical interpretations of Hurston’s work. In addition to publication information, each selection is carefully crafted to capture the author’s thesis in a short, pithy, analytical framework. Also included are original essays by eminent Hurston scholars that contextualize the bibliographic entries. Meticulously researched but accessible, these essays focus on gaps in Hurston criticism and outline new directions for Hurston scholarship in the twenty-first century. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this volume contains analytical summaries of the most important critical writings on Zora Neale Hurston from the 1970s to the present. In addition, entries from difficult-to-locate sources, such as small academic presses or international journals, can be found here. Although intended as a bibliographic resource for graduate and undergraduate students, this volume is also aimed toward general readers interested in women’s literature, African American literature, American history, and popular culture. The book will also appeal to scholars and teachers studying twentieth-century American literature, as well as those specializing in anthropology, modernism, and African American studies, with a special focus on the women of the Harlem Renaissance.

"A deathbed shouldn't be the peacemaker in this family." Fifteen-year-old Renee Steele never understood what PaPa's words meant, until she's caught in the middle of a growing battle between her two older cousins. Their clashing attitudes regarding skin tone, trigger a sensitive nerve in their Grandma Bell. As tension mounts between the three girls, Grandma Bell detects trouble returning from the grave. She’s determined to stop it, and takes the girls on a quest back in time to do it. Her narrative begins with her secret courtship and eloping with Pa-Pa, “Buck Steele”, because their fathers are archenemies. Due to a lack of money, the newlyweds are forced to live with Buck’s parents, Silas and Emma. Grandma Bell's newlywed dreams turn into her worst nightmare, as she begins her married life as the despised dark-skinned daughter-in-law. Her presence does more than anger her in-laws…it haunts them!

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A revelatory account of the brain's capacity for change When neuroscientist Susan Barry was fifty years old, she experienced the sense of immersion in a three dimensional world for the first time. Skyscrapers on street corners appeared to loom out toward her like the bows of giant ships. Tree branches projected upward and outward, enclosing and commanding palpable volumes of space. Leaves created intricate mosaics in 3D. Barry had been cross-eyed and stereoblind since early infancy. After half a century of perceiving her surroundings as flat and compressed, on that day she saw the city of Manhattan in stereo depth for first time in her life. As a neuroscientist, she understood just how extraordinary this transformation was, not only for herself but for the scientific understanding of the human brain. Scientists have long believed that the brain is malleable only during a "critical period" in early childhood. According to this theory, Barry's brain had organized itself when she was a baby to avoid double vision - and there was no way to rewire it as an adult. But Barry found an optometrist who prescribed a little-known program of vision therapy; after intensive training, Barry was ultimately able to accomplish what other scientists and even she herself had once considered impossible. Dubbed "Stereo Sue" by renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks, Susan Barry tells her own remarkable journey and celebrates the joyous pleasure of our senses.

June Roberts explores the complicated post-colonial infrastructure of Caribbean society and life as an African American through the work of Erna Brodber. Brodber's novels Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home, MYAL, and Louisiana all explore various facets of the Caribbean and African American experiences, and Roberts greatly adds to their value through her commentary and interpretation. While she uses Erna Brodber's books' organizing themes as a home base, Roberts doesn't limit her work to strict criticism and analysis of the novels. Instead, she traces countless issues as varied as the nuances of the Caribbean psyche, the importance of matriarchs, traditional slave dances, obeahs, Santeria and other African-based religious expressions, as well as politics and history, and the perspectives of past and present scholars of the Caribbean and African-American experience. Most importantly, Roberts investigates how the colonial system's exploitation and dehumanization of the black people affected their spirits. This text is broad enough to appeal to all enthusiasts of Caribbean and African-American topics, and it can especially benefit academic courses related to these topics.

The Decades of Modern American Drama series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major writers and their works to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: * William Inge: Picnic (1953), Bus Stop (1955) and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957); * Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins: West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959); * Alice Childress: Just a Little Simple (1950), Gold Through the Trees (1952) and Trouble in Mind (1955); * Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee: Inherit the Wind (1955), Auntie Mame (1956) and The Gang's All Here (1959).

Provides a comprehensive guide to American dramatic literature, from its origins in the early days of the nation to American classics such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Thornton Wilder's Our Town to the groundbreaking works of today's best writers.