On the “Primary Sources” page . . .

. . . the curious and interested can find the beginnings of a list of novels, short fiction and historical narratives, predominantly from the United States, in which miscegenation (racial or cultural) is a central theme or plot or narrational device. I encourage visitors here to offer suggested texts (which will eventually include films; [...]

Casta paintings

De Español y Negra, Mulato. Image found here.
The “Images” page for Domestic Issue now has three examples of casta paintings (one striking example of which you see here), a genre that was once quite popular during the colonial era but languished as an area of serious academic inquiry until the 1960s. The subject [...]

Barack Obama’s post-race politics, Part II

(Part I is here)
So how does Barack Obama articulate a post-race politics in a nation–in a hemisphere–whose history has been shaped by racial tension literally since before Columbus? Here in the speech Obama gave at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, he reframes the theme of race in [...]

Barack Obama’s post-race politics, Part I

(Originally posted at Blog Meridian–hence some of the internal links taking you there.)
“Old man, . . . have you lived so long and forgotten so much that you dont remember anything you ever knew or felt or even heard about love?” –William Faulkner, “Delta Autumn”
Readers of this blog know that I have come to admire [...]

About this blog’s title

Welcome, accidental and intentional visitors. There’s not a lot to see here yet, but that will change on down the road.
In the meantime, I thought I would say a few words about the title of this blog. When working on my dissertation, I had a look at the etymologies of signifiers for the [...]