Product Information
Following the pathways of imperial commerce, blackface minstrel troupes began to cross the globe in the mid-nineteenth century, popularizing American racial ideologies as they traveled from Britain to its colonies in the Pacific, Asia, and Oceania, finally landing in South Africa during the 1860s and 1870s. The first popular culture export of the United States, minstrel shows frequently portrayed black characters as noncitizens who were unfit for democratic participation and contributed to the construction of a global color line.Chinua Thelwell brings blackface minstrelsy and performance culture into the discussion of apartheid's nineteenth-century origins and afterlife, employing a broad archive of South African newspapers and magazines, memoirs, minstrel songs and sketches, diaries, and interview transcripts. Exporting Jim Crow highlights blackface minstrelsy's cultural and social impact as it became a dominant form of entertainment, moving from its initial appearances on music hall stages to its troubling twentieth-century resurgence on movie screens and at public events. This carefully researched and highly original study demonstrates that the performance of race in South Africa was inherently political, contributing to racism and shoring up white racial identity.Product Identifiers
PublisherUniversity of Massachusetts Press
ISBN-139781625345172
eBay Product ID (ePID)18046721078
Product Key Features
Number of Pages280 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameExporting Jim Crow: Blackface Minstrelsy in South Africa and Beyond
Publication Year2020
SubjectSocial Sciences
TypeTextbook
AuthorChinua Thelwell
FormatPaperback
Dimensions
Item Height229 mm
Item Weight463 g
Additional Product Features
Country/Region of ManufactureUnited States
Title_AuthorChinua Thelwell