What explains the enduring popularity of white-authored protest fiction about racism in America? How have such books spoken to the racial crises of their time, and why do they remain important in our own era? White Writers, Race Matters explores these questions and the controversies they raise by tracking this tradition in American literary history. Dating back to Uncle Tom's Cabin, the genre includes widely-read and taught works such as Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird along with period best-sellers now sometimes forgotten. This history also takes us to Hollywood, which regularly adapted them into blockbusters that spread their cultural influence further as well as incited debates over their politics. These novels strive to move readers emotionally toward ethical transformation and practical action. Their literary forms, styles and plots derive from the cultural work they intend to do in educating the minds and hearts of those who, in James Baldwin's words, "think they are white"--indeed, in making the social construction of that whiteness readable and thus more susceptible to reform. Each chapter provides a case study combining biography, historical analysis, close reading, and literary theory to map the significance of this genre and its ongoing relevance. This tradition remains vital because every generation must relearn the lessons of antiracism and formulate effective cultural narratives for transmitting intellectual and affective tools useful in fighting injustice.

About the Author
Gregory S. Jay is Professor of English, University Wisconsin--Milwaukee.

Reviews
Though not excusing their flaws, Jay exposes how these novels challenge whiteness, create empathetic and sympathetic identifications that unsettle white privilege, and disrupt normative versions of gender and sexuality. ... An engaging resource for scholars in African American studies and American studies. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *
Jay's study offers an informed and rich literary history of White liberal race fiction from the nineteenth century until today that is highly evocative, and sometimes even provocative, in its partially recuperative stance towards the genre ... White Writers, Race Matters will most certainly leave readers with a more differentiated understanding ... and with a nuanced perspective on White liberal race fiction's significance for American literature and culture. * Katharina Gerund, Amerikastudien *
Jay's painstaking research into the spectrum of racial liberalism and the transformational possibility of white awareness proffers productive lines of enquiry for resistance studies. * Regis Marlene Fox, Modern Langauge Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190687229
Author Gregory S. Jay
Format Hardback
Page Count 384
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 676g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 239mm * 36mm