The Performative Sustainability of Race—Reflections on Black Culture and the Politics of Identity

Using autoethnographic and autopoetic methods based on analysis of his own experiences of growing up black in Louisiana and then working his way through the "White Ivory Tower," Alexander (communication studies, Loyola Marymount U.) explores intersections between performance, performativity, race, and culture in six interconnected essays that address such topics as the performativity of whiteness across borders of race and ethnicity, the notion of "southern hospitality" as performatively enacting nostalgia in relation to a subjugated black experience, constructions and investments in racial identities in higher education, the plays of Tyler Perry as a source for sustaining a particular construction of black culture and performativity, the intersection of race and black queer identity, and the question of racial performativity in the context of the democratization of education. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Bryant Keith Alexander PhD, Professor in Department of Communication Studies and Dean, College of Communication and Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California. He is the coeditor of Performance Theories in Education: Power, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Identity with education scholars Gary L. Anderson and Bernardo P. Gallegos and the author of Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture, and Queer Identity. His scholarly works are included a wide range of journals and book volumes including Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies; Handbook of Performance Studies; Handbook of Qualitative Research, Third Edition; Blackwell Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication; Handbook of Communication and Instruction and Handbook of Autoethnography.