Burying Don Imus

In Burying Don Imus, Michael Awkward provides the first balanced, critical analysis of Imus's comments on the Rutgers women's basketball team and the public outrage they provoked. Written from the singular perspective of a black intellectual with both a long-standing commitment to feminism and a deep familiarity with—and appreciation of—Imus in the Morning, this book contends that the reaction to the insult ignored the nature of Imus's contributions to popular culture and political debate while eliding the real and complicated issues within contemporary racial politics.

America loves sports. This book examines and details the proof of this fascination seen throughout American society—in our literature, film, and music; our clothing and food; and the iconography of the nation. This momentous four-volume work examines and details the cultural aspects of sport and how sport pervasively reflects—and affects—myriad aspects of American society from the early 1900s to the present day. Written in a straightforward, readable manner, the entries cover both historical and contemporary aspects of sport and American culture. Unlike purely historical encyclopedias on sports, the contributions within these volumes cover related subject matter such as poetry, novels, music, films, plays, television shows, art and artists, mythologies, artifacts, and people. While this encyclopedia set is ideal for general readers who need information on the diverse aspects of sport in American culture for research purposes or are merely reading for enjoyment, the detailed nature of the entries will also prove useful as an initial source for scholars of sport and American culture. Each entry provides a number of both print and online resources for further investigation of the topic.

Who is the first female athlete you admired? Were male and female athletes treated differently in your high school? Is there a natural limit to women's athletic ability? How has Title IX opened up opportunities for women athletes? Every semester since 1996, Bonnie Morris has encouraged students to confront questions like these in one of the most provocative college courses in America: Athletics and Gender, A History of Women's Sports. What's the Score?, Morris's energetic teaching memoir, is a peek inside that class and features a decades-long dialogue with student athletes about the greater opportunities for women—on the playing field, as coaches, and in sports media. From corsets to segregated schoolyards to the WNBA, we find women athletes the world over conquering unique barriers to success. What's the Score? is not only an insider's look at sports education but also an engaging guide to turning points in women's sports history that everyone should know.

A brief commentary on the necessity and the impossibility of black men’s participation in the development of black feminist theory and politics, Black Men, Black Feminism examines the basic assumptions that have guided—and misguided—black men’s efforts to take up black feminism. Offering a rejoinder to the contemporary study of black men and masculinity in the twenty-first century, Jared Sexton interrogates some of the most common intellectual postures of black men writing about black feminism, ultimately departing from the prevailing discourse on progressive black masculinities. Sexton examines, by contrast, black men’s critical and creative work—from Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep to Jordan Peele’s Get Out— to describe the cultural logic that provides a limited moral impetus to the quest for black male feminism and that might, if reconfigured, prompt an ethical response of an entirely different order.

A critical look at works from this emerging body of literature. Examines Their eyes were watching God, The bluest eye, The women of Brewster Place, and The color purple. Provides insight to the aesthetically complex and ideologically challenging novels of Afro- American women. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This single-source reference will help students and general readers alike understand the most critical issues facing American society today. Featuring the work of almost 200 expert contributors, the Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues comprises four volumes, each devoted to a particular subject area. Volume one covers business and the economy; volume two, criminal justice; volume three, family and society; and volume four, the environment, science, and technology. Coverage within these volumes ranges from biotechnology to identity theft, from racial profiling to corporate governance, from school choice to food safety. The work brings into focus a broad array of key issues confronting American society today. Approximately 225 in-depth entries lay out the controversies debated in the media, on campuses, in government, in boardrooms, and in homes and neighborhoods across the United States. Critical issues in criminology, medicine, religion, commerce, education, the environment, media, family life, and science are all carefully described and examined in a scholarly yet accessible way. Sidebars, photos, charts, and graphs throughout augment the entries, making them even more compelling and informative.

Michael Awkward’s Philadelphia Freedoms captures the energetic contestations over the meanings of racial politics and black identity during the post-King era in the City of Brotherly Love. Looking closely at four cultural moments, he shows how racial trauma and his native city’s history have been entwined. He introduces each of these moments with poignant personal memories of the decade in focus and explores representation of African American freedom and oppression from the 1960s to the 1990s. Philadelphia Freedoms explores NBA players’ psychic pain during a playoff game the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination; themes of fatherhood and black masculinity in the soul music produced by Philadelphia International Records; class conflict in Andrea Lee’s novel Sarah Phillips; and the theme of racial healing in Oprah Winfrey’s 1997 film, Beloved. Awkward closes his examination of racial trauma and black identity with a discussion of candidate Barack Obama’s speech on race at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center, pointing to the conflict between the nation’s ideals and the racial animus that persists even into the second term of America’s first black president.

In this volume, Ryden and Marshall bring together the field of composition and rhetoric with critical whiteness studies to show that in our "post race" era whiteness and racism not only survive but actually thrive in higher education. As they examine the effects of racism on contemporary literacy practices and the rhetoric by which white privilege maintains and reproduces itself, Ryden and Marshall consider topics ranging from the emotional investment in whiteness to the role of personal narrative in reconstituting racist identities to critiques of the foundational premises of writing programs steeped in repudiation of despised discourses. Marshall and Ryden alternate chapters to sustain a multi-layered dialogue that traces the rhetorical complexities and contradictions of teaching English and writing in a university setting. Their lived experiences as faculty and administrators serve to underscore the complex code of whiteness even as they push to decode it and demonstrate how their own pedagogical practices are raced and racialized in multiple ways. Collectively, the essays ask instructors and administrators to consider more carefully the pernicious nature of whiteness in their professional activities and how it informs our practices.