In the late nineteenth century, the stereotype of the black male as sexual beast functioned for white supremacists as an externalized symbol of social chaos against which all whites would unite for the purpose of national renewal. The emergence of this stereotype in American culture and literature during and after Reconstruction was related to the growth of white-on-black violence, as white lynch mobs acted in "defence" of white womanhood, the white family, and white nationalism. In Rape, Race, and Lynching Sandra Gunning investigates American literary encounters with the conditions, processes, and consequences of such violence through the representation of not just the black rapist stereotype, but of other crucial stereotypes in mediating moments of white social crisis: "lascivious" black womanhood; avenging white masculinity; and passive white femininity. Gunning argues that these figures together signify the tangle of race and gender representation emerging from turn-of-the-century American literature. The book brings together Charles W. Chestnutt, Kate Chopin, Thomas Dixon, David Bryant Fulton, Pauline Hopkins, Mark Twain, and Ida B. Wells: famous, infamous, or long-neglected figures who produced novels, essays, stories, and pamphlets in the volatile period of the 1890s to the early 1900s, and who contributed to the continual renegotiation and redefinition of the terms and boundaries of a national dialogue on racial violence.

Named as an Outstanding Academic Book of 1997 by CHOICE

About the Author
Sandra Gunning is Assistant Professor in the Department of American Studies at the College of William and Mary.

Reviews
Challenging and comprehensive....The analyses of the fiction are sound, illuminating, and rigorously argued, alert to the ways novels both subvert and reinforce racist ideology. * Choice *


Awards
Winner of Named as an Outstanding Academic Book of 1997 by CHOICE.



Book Information
ISBN 9780195099904
Author Sandra Gunning
Format Hardback
Page Count 206
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 475g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 161mm * 20mm