Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)

Du Bois’ intellectual and political legacy. He traces the shifting character of black intellectual and social movements, and shows how we can construct an account of moral progress that reflects today’s complex realities.. Jazz, blues, soul, reggae, and hip hop are now seen as generically American, yet artists like Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and Bob Marley, who questioned the allure of mobility and speed, are not understood by people who have drained their music of its moral power.Gilroy explores the way in which objects and technologies can become dynamic social forces, ensuring black culture’s global reach while undermining the drive for equality and justice. E. What are the implications for our notions of freedom?With his brilliant, provocative analysis and astonishing range of reference, Gilroy revitalizes the study of African American culture. Paul Gilroy seeks to awaken a new understanding of W. Drawing on the work of a number of thinkers, including Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon, he examines the ethical dimensions of living in a society that celebrates the object. B. Luxury goods and branded items, especially the automobilerich in symbolic value and the promise of individual freedomhave restratified society, weakened citizenship, and diminished the collective spirit. At a time of economic crisis, environmental degradation, ongoing warfare, and heated debate over human rights, how

All rights reserved. Paying special attention to musical vernacular—from Robert Johnson to 50 Cent—Gilroy's stimulating reappraisal of the seductions of car culture underscores how status improvement for minorities has shifted from acquiring rights to acquiring objects. . From Publishers Weekly Gilroy (Against Race) offers a shrewd and invigorating discussion—originally delivered as the W.E.B. Gilroy demonstrates how understanding black experience is crucial in any serious study of modernity itself, at a time when global capitalism trades evermore in American-inflected styles of blackness, while simultaneously maintaining and reinforcing lines of racial and class subjugation. (Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. At the same time, he argues for the anticonsumerist notes struck by such responsible troubadours as

Paul Gilroy holds the Anthony Giddens Professorship in Social Theory at the London School of Economics.