Blackness and Value

Blackness and Value investigates the principles by which value operates, and asks if it is useful to imagine that the concepts of racial blackness and whiteness in the United States operate in terms of these principles. Testing these concepts by exploring various theoretical approaches and their shortcomings, Lindon Barrett finds that the gulf between ‘the street’ (where race is acknowledged as a powerful enigma) and the literary academy (where until recently it has not been) can be understood as a symptom of racial violence. The book traces several interrelations between value and race, such as literate/illiterate, the signing/singing voice, time/space, civic/criminal, and academy/street, and offers relevant and fresh readings of two novels by Ann Petry. While approaches to race and value are commonly examined historically or sociologically, this intriguing study provides a new critical approach that speaks to theorists of race as well as gender and queer studies.

• Uses a varied critical approach which draws from phenomenological, literary close reading, institutional history, gender and queer studies

1. Introduction; Part I. Violence and the unsightly: 2. Figures of violence; 3. Figuring others of value; 4. (Further) figures of violence; Part II. Reasonings and Reasonableness: 5. De-marking limits; Part III. Phonic and Scopic Economies: 6. Signs of others; 7. Signs of the visible.

\'What makes this volume valuable … is its connection of the theory of race to the theory of value as well as an analysis of a broad range of cultural manifestations in which the interplay of race and value is demonstrated … Lindon Barrett offers an extensive analysis of the phenomenon of value … His complex inquiries covering a variety of seemingly disparate fields offer a revealing read to senior students and scholars engaged in the field of African American studies.\' American Studies