Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Cities of the Dead by Joseph Roach

I found this book both helpful and intriguing. Roach posits that we gain a lot by investigating what he calls circum-Atlantic culture. He is particularly interested in memory, performance, and grief--and the way these three topics are related by the process of surrogation. Although the book centers around New Orleans and London, it allows its focus to encompass broader areas of inquiry as they're applicable, and, perhaps as a result, the organization of the text isn't quite as clear. Still, Roach's book gives a fresh approach to theorizing questions of race and cultural interactions in the (here, mostly anglophone) Atlantic world.

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