A01=Jonathan Munby
academic
african american
america
artistic
arts
Author_Jonathan Munby
bias
black
Category=JBCC1
Category=JBSL
civil rights
contemporary
crime
criminal
discrimination
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gangsta
harlem renaissance
historical
history
identity
interdisciplinary
literary
media
modern
modernity
music
musical
myth
popular culture
rationale
research
scholarly
self
understanding
united states
usa
Product details
- ISBN 9780226550350
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jul 2011
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
What accounts for the persistence of the figure of the black criminal in popular culture created by African Americans? Unearthing the overlooked history of art that has often seemed at odds with the politics of civil rights and racial advancement, "Under a Bad Sign" explores the rationale behind this tradition of criminal self-representation from the Harlem Renaissance to contemporary gangsta culture. In this lively exploration, Jonathan Munby takes a uniquely broad view, laying bare the way the criminal appears within and moves among literary, musical, and visual arts. Munby traces the legacy of badness in Rudolph Fisher and Chester Himes' detective fiction and in Claude McKay, Julian Mayfield, and Donald Goines' urban experience writing. Ranging from Peetie Wheatstraw's gangster blues to gangsta rap, he also examines criminals in popular songs. Turning to the screen, the underworld films of Oscar Micheaux and Ralph Cooper, the 1970s blaxploitation cycle, and the 1990s hood movie come under his microscope as well.
Ultimately, Munby concludes that this tradition has been a misunderstood aspect of African American civic life and that, rather than undermining black culture, it forms a rich and enduring response to being outcast in America.
Jonathan Munby is a senior lecturer in film studies and American studies at Lancaster University. He is the author of Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from "Little Caesar" to "Touch of Evil", also published by the University of Chicago Press.
