According to relational sociology, power imbalances are at the root of human conflicts and consequently shape the physical and symbolic struggles between interdependent groups or individuals. This volume highlights the role of power relations in the African American experience by applying key concepts of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias to black literature and culture. The authors offer new readings of power asymmetries as represented in works of canonical and contemporary black writers (Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Percival Everett, Colson Whitehead), rap music (e.g., Jay Z), images of black homelessness, and figurations of political activism (civil rights activist Bayard Rustin,

Transatlantic Negotiations was the theme of the 52. annual convention of the German Association for American Studies, held in Frankfurt in 2005. Each contribution to this volume illuminates explicitly or implicitly the intricacies of negotiations embedded in different relationships of power as they reverberate through history. Together they present a wide range of forms of interaction between Europe, Africa, and America, from fruitful exchange to contemptuous or thoughtless discrimination. The collection thus points to a salient feature of transatlantic relations, namely the simultaneity of mutual enriching forms of negotiation, marked by reciprocity, with drastic forms of inequality in which the negotiating power is almost entirely one-sided.