{"product_id":"deadpan-the-aesthetics-of-black-inexpression-paperback-softback-9781479811212","title":"Deadpan; The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression (Paperback \/ softback) 9781479811212","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eDeadpan\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eThe Aesthetics of Black Inexpression\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eTina Post (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781479811212\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 10 January 2023\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e280 pages, 63 color illustrations\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.44 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"It is in Post's creative and heterogenous readings that the force of her argument best comes across... we might ask ourselves why it takes so little in this life not only to be compelled to express absence, but to want to disappear entirely.\" - Tiana Reid (Artforum) \"The text pulses with creativity as Post locates deadpan in theater, visual and performance art, performances of the self, and more ... With the ambition of her project and immense catalog of works, Post generates momentum for further study of Black aesthetics, affect, and modes of reserve.\" (Black Perspectives) \"Tina Post's \u003ci\u003eDeadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression\u003c\/i\u003e reconsiders the historical legacy of the concept outside of traditional accounts of comedy and humor studies by offering an impressive \"investigation of the aesthetic affects at work at the intersection of blackness and embodied inexpressions\"… the study provides an intelligent contribution to the strands of literature on black performance studies, humor studies, and visual studies at large.\" (Film Quarterly) \"In this startlingly original, theoretically nuanced, wide-ranging exploration of inexpressiveness as an underexamined performance repertoire in Black arts and culture, Tina Post makes a landmark contribution to the field of race and aesthetics. \u003ci\u003eDeadpan \u003c\/i\u003eexplores the fine structure of a rhetorically intricate aesthetic technique as malleable in its uses as affect itself, and it does so with remarkable wit and precision.\" (Sianne Ngai, author of Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form) \"A stellar study filled with dazzling prose, poignant persuasion, ethical intervention, and intellectual adventure. While dominant US culture regards blackness as hyper-expressive, melodramatic, and spectacular, Tina Post carefully directs our attention to the subtle and sometimes inscrutable art of black inexpression. Across a sweeping repertoire—from nineteenth- century daguerreotypes to twentieth-century avant-garde performance to twenty-first century memes and beyond—she affirms 'illegibility's efficacy for the black subject.' She knows and shows that expressionlessness has been vital to black aesthetics, resistance, refusal, self-defense, self-making, and world-making. As I read about deadpan, my own face was anything but: Post's arresting arguments and gorgeous sentences made my black visage light up with intrigue, wonder, and delight.\" (La Marr Jurelle Bruce, author of How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity) \"Some books achieve significance in the time they were written, some command attention after they were written, and some remain timeless... Tina Post's book \u003ci\u003eDeadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpressions\u003c\/i\u003e, which arrives timeously in 2022 is indeed quintessential in temporality and in the significance of Black cultural studies.\" (Ethnic and Third World Literatures)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWinner of the \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e2023 \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNational Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2023 ASAP Book Prize, given by the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eExplores expressionlessness, inscrutability, and emotional withholding in Black cultural production\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Arguing that inexpression is a gesture that acquires distinctive meanings in concert with blackness, \u003ci\u003eDeadpan\u003c\/i\u003e tracks instances and meanings of deadpan—a vaudeville term meaning \"dead face\"—across literature, theater, visual and performance art, and the performance of self in everyday life.\u003cbr\u003e Tina Post reveals that the performance of purposeful withholding is a critical tool in the work of black culture makers, intervening in the persistent framing of African American aesthetics as colorful, loud, humorous, and excessive. Beginning with the expressionless faces of mid-twentieth-century documentary photography and proceeding to early twenty-first-century drama, this project examines performances of blackness's deadpan aesthetic within and beyond black embodiments, including Young Jean Lee's \u003ci\u003eThe Shipment\u003c\/i\u003e and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's \u003ci\u003eNeighbors\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as Buster Keaton's signature character and Steve McQueen's restitution of the former's legacy within the continuum of Black cultural production. \u003cbr\u003e Through this varied archive, Post reveals how deadpan aesthetics function in and between opacity and fugitivity, minimalism and saturation, excess and insensibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"NYU Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52670774575384,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/deadpan-the-aesthetics-of-black-inexpression-paperback-softback-9781479811212","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}