front cover of Look Away!
Look Away!
The U.S. South in New World Studies
Jon Smith and Deborah Cohn, eds.
Duke University Press, 2004
Look Away! considers the U.S. South in relation to Latin America and the Caribbean. Given that some of the major characteristics that mark the South as exceptional within the United States—including the legacies of a plantation economy and slave trade—are common to most of the Americas, Look Away! points to postcolonial studies as perhaps the best perspective from which to comprehend the U.S. South. At the same time it shows how, as part of the United States, the South—both center and margin, victor and defeated, and empire and colony—complicates ideas of the postcolonial. The twenty-two essays in this comparative, interdisciplinary collection rethink southern U.S. identity, race, and the differences and commonalities between the cultural productions and imagined communities of the U.S. South and Latin America.

Look Away! presents work by respected scholars in comparative literature, American studies, and Latin American studies. The contributors analyze how writers—including the Martinican Edouard Glissant, the Cuban-American Gustavo Pérez Firmat, and the Trinidad-born, British V. S. Naipaul—have engaged with the southern United States. They explore William Faulkner’s role in Latin American thought and consider his work in relation to that of Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges. Many essays re-examine major topics in southern U.S. culture—such as race, slavery, slave resistance, and the legacies of the past—through the lens of postcolonial theory and postmodern geography. Others discuss the South in relation to the U.S.–Mexico border. Throughout the volume, the contributors consistently reconceptualize U.S. southern culture in a way that acknowledges its postcolonial status without diminishing its distinctiveness.

Contributors. Jesse Alemán, Bob Brinkmeyer, Debra Cohen, Deborah Cohn, Michael Dash, Leigh Anne Duck, Wendy Faris, Earl Fitz, George Handley, Steve Hunsaker, Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Dane Johnson, Richard King, Jane Landers, John T. Matthews, Stephanie Merrim, Helen Oakley, Vincent Pérez, John-Michael Rivera, Scott Romine, Jon Smith, Ilan Stavans, Philip Weinstein, Lois Parkinson Zamora

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Performing #MeToo
How Not to Look Away
Edited by Judith Rudakoff
Intellect Books, 2021
This collection of essays applies a multinational lens to performances that explore the #MeToo movement.

In October 2017, a wave of sexual assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein prompted an outpouring of similar stories on Twitter and beyond, all bound by the same hashtag: #MeToo. The phrase, initially coined by activist Tarana Burke in 2006, reverberated across the internet and invigorated a movement. The essays in this volume engage with many of the performative interpretations of and responses to the #MeToo movement and invite reflection, discussion, and action. 

Written by an international group of scholars and artists, the essays bring a global perspective to discussions on topics at the intersection of the #MeToo movement and the performing arts, including celebrity feminism, the practice of protest as a coping mechanism, misogynistic speech, the politics of performance, rehearsing and performing intimacy, and more. Contributors highlight works they have performed, witnessed, or studied, offering analysis and nuance while creating an archive of a powerful cultural moment. 
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