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Race and Identity in Barack Obama's Dreams of My Father: A Collection of Critical Essays

Author: 
Year:
Pages:308
ISBN:0-7734-1601-3
978-0-7734-1601-7
Price:$219.95
Work examines significant aspects of President Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father both in relation to the African American literary tradition and to the context of the relevant historical and cultural productions that inform it. The authors view the book a work of literature and compare it to other works by black authors such as Toni Morrison, Frederick Douglass, and Ralph Ellison among others.

Reviews

“Here we are with a book that leaps forth with analysis and critiques capable of filling in the gaps of our history by filling in the interstitial spaces between dreams and whishes, dreams and nightmares, dreams and realities from a paternity faintly remembered and preeminently present.”-Prof. Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University

“…the essays collected in this volume will offer a scholarly and critical examination of Dreams from My Father as a contribution to the African American autobiographical tradition; as the place where several important historical and cultural threads meet and mingle; as what will surely become a key document in the American conversation on race and identity.”-Prof. Martin Beller, Texas Southern University

“The variety of perspectives, the level of scholarship and the seriousness of purpose present in their text offers scholars and educators an important resource for further study of Barack Obama.” -Prof. Constantina Michalos, The University of St. Thomas

Table of Contents

Foreword
Molefi Kete Asantei

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Michael A. Zeitler

A Knot to Bind Our Experiences Together: Storytelling in Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father and Critical Race Theory
Erin Ponton Fiero

No Apology for the Show: Performance and Oratorical Self-Creation in Obama, Douglass, and Ellison
Granville Ganter

Slumming and Self-Making in Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father
David Mastey

In Search of My Father’s Garden: Kenya as the Focal Point for the Study of a New Kind of Narrative in African American Autobiography
Claire Joly

An Image of Africa: Race and Identity in Barack Obama’s Rewriting of Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ Michael Zeitler

Obama, Ellison, and the Search for Identity
Rita Saylors

Voices of His Mothers: Feminist Interventions and Identity in Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father
Letizia Guglielmo

Queer Coherence: Loss and Hybridity in Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father
Patricia Harris Gillies

The Search for Race and Masculine Identity in Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father
Dolores Sisco

Beyond Race: Racial Transcendence in Jean Toomer’s Cane and Barack Obama’sDreams from My Father
Charlene T. Evans

Glorious Burdens: A Lacanian Reading of Racial Passing, Inheritance, and PaternalDesire in Obama’s Dreams from My Father
Nicholas Powers