2 Books Published by Syracuse University Press on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Click for more detail about Black Male Frames: African Americans In A Century Of Hollywood Cinema, 1903-2003 (Television And Popular Culture) by Roland Leander Williams Jr. Black Male Frames: African Americans In A Century Of Hollywood Cinema, 1903-2003 (Television And Popular Culture)

by Roland Leander Williams Jr.
Syracuse University Press (Jan 06, 2015)
Read Detailed Book Description


Black Male Frames charts the development and shifting popularity of two stereotypes of black masculinity in popular American film: "the shaman" or "the scoundrel." Starting with colonial times, Williams identifies the origins of these roles in an America where black men were forced either to defy or to defer to their white masters. These figures recur in the stories America tells about its black men, from the fictional Jim Crow and Zip Coon to historical figures such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. Williams argues that these two extremes persist today in modern Hollywood, where actors such as Sam Lucas, Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman, among others, must cope with and work around such limited options. Williams situates these actors’ performances of one or the other stereotype within each man’s personal history and within the country’s historical moment, ultimately to argue that these men are rewarded for their portrayal of the stereotypes most needed to put America’s ongoing racial anxieties at ease. Reinvigorating the discussion that began with Donald Bogle’s seminal work, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, Black Male Frames illuminates the ways in which individuals and the media respond to the changing racial politics in America.

Book Review

Click for more detail about Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry by Keith Gilyard Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry

by Keith Gilyard
Syracuse University Press (Jan 01, 1997)
Read Detailed Book Description


Spirit & Flame celebrates the creativity of the African American poet. This volume, comprising more than two hundred pieces, delivers the artistic and political fervor of new and established black voices around the country - in the oral tradition; in tanka and sonnets; in lyrics that echo the sound of jazz, hip hop, and rap. Heir to the classic Black Fire published in 1968, the book exemplifies modern black aesthetics, bringing together some of the best African American poets of the last decade.