Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-264) and index.
Contents
"Speaking the unspeakable" : shame, trauma, and Morrison's fiction -- "The devastation that even casual racial contempt can cause" : chronic shame, traumatic abuse, and racial self-loathing in The bluest eye -- "I like my own dirt" : disinterested violence and shamelessness in Sula -- "Can't nobody fly with all that shit" : the shame-pride axis and black masculinity in Song of Solomon -- "Defacating over a whole people" : the politics of shame and the failure of love in Tar baby -- "Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing" : the dirtied and traumatized self of slavery in Beloved -- "The dirty, get-on-down music" : city pride, shame, and violence in Jazz -- "He's bringing along the dung we leaving behind" : the intergenerational transmission of racial shame and trauma in Paradise.
