Scenes of Subjection

Hartman shows how the violence of captivity and enslavement was embodied in many of the performance practices that grew from, and about, slave culture in antebellum America. Using tools of anthropology, history, and literary criticism, Hartman examines a range of material, including songs, dance, stories, diaries, narratives, and journals. Hartman analyses the presentations of slavery and blackness in minstrelsy; the constructions of slave culture in 19th century ethnographic writings and the political consciousness of folklore. This may be of value to scholars and students in African American history, cultural studies, literary studies, and antebellum US history.