| American Trickster: Trauma, Tradition and Brer Rabbit Contributor(s): Zobel Marshall, Emily (Author) |
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ISBN: 1783481099 ISBN-13: 9781783481095 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers OUR PRICE: $133.65 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: June 2019 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | American - African American - Literary Criticism | Caribbean & Latin American - Literary Criticism | Semiotics & Theory |
| Dewey: 398.208 |
| LCCN: 2019004380 |
| Physical Information: 0.56" H x 6" W x 9" (0.97 lbs) 182 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Cultural Region - Latin America |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Our fascination with the trickster figure, whose presence is global, stems from our desire to break free from the tightly regimented structures of our societies. Condemned to conform to laws and rules imposed by governments, communities, social groups and family bonds, we revel in the fantasy of the trickster whose energy and cunning knows no bounds and for whom nothing is sacred. One such trickster is Brer Rabbit, who was introduced to North America through the folktales of enslaved Africans. On the plantations, Brer Rabbit, like Anansi in the Caribbean, functioned as a resistance figure for the enslaved whose trickery was aimed at undermining and challenging the plantation regime. Yet as Brer Rabbit tales moved from the oral tradition to the printed page in the late nineteenth-century, the trickster was emptied of his potentially powerful symbolism by white American collectors, authors and folklorists in their attempt to create a nostalgic fantasy of the plantation past. American Trickster offers readers a unique insight into the cultural significance of the Brer Rabbit trickster figure, from his African roots and through to his influence on contemporary culture. Exploring the changing portrayals of the trickster figure through a wealth of cultural forms including folktales, advertising, fiction and films the book scrutinises the profound tensions between the perpetuation of damaging racial stereotypes and the need to keep African-American folk traditions alive. Emily Zobel Marshall argues that Brer Rabbit was eventually reclaimed by twentieth-century African-American novelists whose protagonists 'trick' their way out of limiting stereotypes, break down social and cultural boundaries and offer readers practical and psychological methods for challenging the traumatic legacies of slavery and racism. |
Contributor Bio(s): Zobel Marshall, Emily: - Emily Zobel Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature and Course Director for English Literature at the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University. She teaches courses on African-American, Caribbean, African and Black British literature. Her research specialisms are African American and Caribbean literature and Caribbean carnival cultures. She is an expert on the trickster figure in the folklore, oral cultures and literature of the African Diaspora and she has published widely in these fields. She is currently establishing a Caribbean Carnival Cultures research platform and network that aims to bring the critical, creative, academic and artistic aspects of carnival into dialogue with one another. Emily regularly organises, hosts and chairs literary events and has organised conferences on Caribbean literature and culture. She is a regular contributor to BBC radio discussions on racial politics and Caribbean culture and is an invited speaker at national and international academic conferences. Her books focus on the role of the trickster in Caribbean and African American cultures and her first book, Anansi's Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance (2012) was published by the University of the West Indies Press. Emily also writes poetry and lives in Leeds, Yorkshire, with her husband Tom and her two young children Theo and Rose. |