In Michael Jackson and the Quandary of a Black Identity, Sherrow O. Pinder explores the ways in which the late singer's racial identification process problematizes conceptualizations of race and the presentation of blackness that reduces blacks to a bodily mark. Pinder is particularly interested in how Michael Jackson simultaneously performs his racial identity and posits it against strict binary racial definitions, neither black nor white. While Jackson's self-fashioning deconstructs and challenges the corporeal notions of "natural bodies" and fixed identities, negative readings of the King of Pop fuel epithets such as "weird" or "freak," subjecting him to a form of antagonism that denies the black body its self-determination. Thus, for Jackson, racial identification becomes a deeply ambivalent process, which leads to the fragmentation of his identity into plural identities. Pinder shows how Jackson as a racialized subject is discursively confined to a "third space," a liminal space of ambivalence.

Throughout his 40-year career, Michael Jackson intrigued and captivated public imagination through musical ingenuity, sexual and racial spectacle, savvy publicity stunts, odd behaviours, and a seemingly apolitical (yet always political) offering of popular art. A consistent player on the public stage from the age of eight, his consciousness was no doubt shaped by his countless public appearances, both designed and serendipitous. The artefacts he left behind - music, interviews, books written by and about him, and commercial products including dolls, buttons, posters, and photographs, videos, movies - will all become data in our cultural conversation about who Michael Jackson was, who he wanted to be, who we made him to be, and why. Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle includes essays that aim to understand Jackson from multiple perspectives: critical cultural theory, musicology, art history, media studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies, literary theory, gender studies, performance studies, disability studies, film studies, and African-American studies. Intended for classroom use as well as research and general interest, this book expands our understanding both of this fascinating figure himself and of gender, sexuality, celebrity, and popular culture.

This book problematizes the ways in which the discourses of colorblindness and post-raciality are articulated in the age of Obama. Pinder debunks the myth that race does not matter and reconsiders the presumptive hegemony of whiteness through the dialectics of visibility and invisibility of race.

David Walker, a free (with a small f) black man, was one of the most significant African-American abolitionists of the nineteenth century. Born in a slave society before moving to Boston where, after the American Revolutionary War, slavery was abolished, Walker devoted his life to fighting slavery and antiblack racism. In this book, Sherrow O. Pinder brings to light Walker’s lived experience, activism, and the synchronizing of his Christian principles and reformist radicalism to demonstrate why and how slavery must be eliminated. Walker’s call for blacks to regain their natural rights culminated in his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, an enormously influential work that is now considered a founding text of black studies. Today, given the escalation of antiblack racism manifested in the upholding of institutionalized violence by the state and the continued marginality of African-Americans, we cannot afford to forget Walker’s push for racial egalitarianism: it is more urgent than ever.

A unique collection of articles and speeches by prominent African American activists, spanning over 150 years of black political thought.

This book proposes a pedagogy of black urban struggle and solidarity.

An essential companion to Michael Jackson's music, films, and books, this work offers 21 original, academic essays on all things Jackson-from film, music, and dance to fashion, culture, and literature. Going well beyond the average celebrity biography, this comprehensive book looks at why Jackson is regarded as one of the most important musicians of our time, offering insights into every facet of his art, life, and artistic afterlife. It looks at the methods by which his work was created, presented, received, and appropriated; discusses Jackson's varied personas along with his public and private appearances, albums, conceptual art, short films, and dance; and considers his use of costume, makeup, and reinvention. To help readers understand the phenomenon that was-and is-Michael Jackson, the book focuses on Jackson's historical context through an analysis of his films, songs, and books, examining him as an artist and shedding light on the political and ideological debates that surrounded him. Not shying away from the controversial aspects of Jackson's life and legacy, it also tackles questions of sexuality and racism, gender, and class, comparing Jackson to artists ranging from J. S. Bach to Andy Warhol. Through its examination of Jackson's entire catalog, the work connects all the aspects of his art and life to exemplify-and explain-the performer's unparalleled influence in the 20th and 21st centuries.