Signs of Diaspora/Diaspora of Signs - Literacies, Creolization, and Vernacular Practice in African America (Hardcover)

Challenging monolithic approaches to culture and literacy, this book looks at the roots of African-American reading and writing from the perspective of vernacular activities and creolization. It shows that African-Americans, while readily mastering the conventions and canons of Euro-America, also drew on knowledge of their own to make an oppositional repertoire of signs and meanings. Distinct from conventional script literacy on the one hand, and oral culture on the other, these "creolized" vernacular practices include writing in charms, use of personal or nondecodable scripts, the strategic renunciation of reading and writing as communicative tools, and writing that is linked to divination, trance, and possession. Based on extensive ethnographic research in the Southeastern United States and the West Indies, Gundaker offers a complex portrait of the intersection of "outsider" conventions with "insider" knowledge and practice.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Commonwealth Center Studies in American Culture
Release date:	October 1998
First published:	July 1998
Authors:	Grey Gundaker (Assistant Professor of American Studies and Anthropology)
Dimensions:	242 x 164 x 24mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	304
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-510769-2
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Ethnic studies > Black studies
LSN:	0-19-510769-1
Barcode:	9780195107692

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!