Poitier Revisited ─ Reconsidering a Black Icon in the Obama Age

"Sidney Poitier remains one of the most recognizable black men in the world. Widely celebrated but at times criticized for the roles he played during a career that spanned 60 years, there can be no comprehensive discussion of black men in American film, and no serious analysis of 20th century American film history that excludes him. Poitier Revisited offers a fresh interrogation of the social, cultural and political significance of the Poitier oeuvre. The contributions explore the broad spectrum of critical issues summoned up by Poitier's iconic work as actor, director and filmmaker. Despite his stature, Poitier has actually been under-examined in film criticism generally. This work reconsiders his pivotal role in film and American race relations, by arguing persuasively, that even in this supposedly 'post-racial' moment of Barack Obama, the struggles, aspirations, anxieties, and tensions Poitier's films explored are every bit as relevant today as when they were first made"--

Ian Gregory Strachan is Associate Professor of English at the College of The Bahamas. He is the author of Paradise and Plantation: Tourism and Culture in the Anglophone Caribbean (2002), and recently co-edited an issue of the University of Miami's journal of Caribbean studies, Anthurium dedicated to Bahamian literature. He has also recently contributed a chapter to Routledge's forthcoming anthologyBlack Cinema Reconsidered entitled "The Measure of Men: Legacies of Sidney Poitier's A Piece of the Action."

Mia Mask is Associate Professor of Film at Vassar College, USA, where she teaches courses on African American cinema, documentary film history, celebrity and power, and seminars on special topics. She also teaches feminist film theory, African national cinemas, and genre courses. She is the author of Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film and the editor ofContemporary Black American Cinema. She has written film reviews and covered festivals for IndieWire.com,The Village Voice, Film Quarterly, Time Out New York, and The Poughkeepsie Journal. Her criticism was anthologized in Best American Movie Writing, 1999. Her scholarly essays are published in theAfrican American National Biography, Screen Stars of the 1990s, Film and Literature, and American Cinema of the 1970s. She is on the editorial board ofThe Black Scholar. Her cultural commentary has been heard on National Public Radio.