Cultural Trauma
Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity

Ron Eyerman explores the formation of African American identity through the cultural trauma of slavery.

Ron Eyerman (Author)

9780521004374, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 December 2001

316 pages
22.7 x 15.4 x 2 cm, 0.507 kg

'Eyerman does well to incorporate blacks' globalized consciousness and to contextualize their shifting perspectives and concerns. This ambitious attempt to provide a framework for explaining black identity and social movements since emancipation offers intriguing insights that merit consideration.' Journal of American History

In this book, Ron Eyerman explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory: a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Combining a broad narrative sweep with more detailed studies of important events and individuals, Eyerman reaches from Emancipation through the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the New Deal and the Second World War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond. He offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, as well as providing a compelling account of the birth of African-American identity. Anyone interested in questions of assimilation, multiculturalism and postcolonialism will find this book indispensable.

1. Cultural trauma and collective memory
2. Remembering and forgetting
3. Out of Africa
4. The black public sphere and the heritage of slavery
5. Memory and representation
6. Civil rights and black nationalism
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH]