Overview

Named a 2019 Choice Outstanding Academic Title In Shades of Gray Molly Littlewood McKibbin offers a social and literary history of multiracialism in the twentieth-century United States. She examines the African American and white racial binary in contemporary multiracial literature to reveal the tensions and struggles of multiracialism in American life through individual consciousness, social perceptions, societal expectations, and subjective struggles with multiracial identity. McKibbin weaves a rich sociohistorical tapestry around the critically acclaimed works of Danzy Senna, Caucasia (1998); Rebecca Walker, Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self (2000); Emily Raboteau, The Professor's Daughter (2005); Rachel M. Harper, Brass Ankle Blues (2006); and Heidi Durrow, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (2010). Taking into account the social history of racial classification and the literary history of depicting mixed race, she argues that these writers are producing new representations of multiracial identity. Shades of Gray> examines the current opportunity to define racial identity after the civil rights, black power, and multiracial movements of the late twentieth century changed the sociopolitical climate of the United States and helped revolutionize the racial consciousness of the nation. McKibbin makes the case that twenty-first-century literature is able to represent multiracial identities for the first time in ways that do not adhere to the dichotomous conceptions of race that have, until now, determined how racial identities could be expressed in the United States.

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9781496246523

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Reviews

""In this groundbreaking study of multiracialism, McKibbin . . . explores recent criticism and contemporary autobiography and fiction. . . . The author understands the political implications of her subject, and she explores President Obama's role in the reformation of concepts of mixed-race individuals. This provocative book is cautious in its claims, acknowledging that current awareness is still in its early stages and has not yet been fully incorporated into the nation's general consciousness."" - T.P. Riggio, Choice “Shades of Gray deepens our understanding of how race and multiracial identities are evolving and enriches efforts to frame these evolving identities in theoretically sound and productive ways.” -Carlton D. Floyd, associate professor of English at the University of San Diego

""McKibbin's book contributes to recent efforts—in and beyond the academy—to rethink identity politics, promote social justice, and build inclusive communities.""—Tru Leverette, MELUS ""In this groundbreaking study of multiracialism, McKibbin . . . explores recent criticism and contemporary autobiography and fiction. . . . The author understands the political implications of her subject, and she explores President Obama's role in the reformation of concepts of mixed-race individuals. This provocative book is cautious in its claims, acknowledging that current awareness is still in its early stages and has not yet been fully incorporated into the nation's general consciousness.""—T.P. Riggio, Choice ""McKibben's analysis . . . highlights the emerging multicultural discourses occurring within these groups that may help to push the US toward more expansive understandings of these ever-present identities.""—Wendy Braun, Spectrum “Shades of Gray deepens our understanding of how race and multiracial identities are evolving and enriches efforts to frame these evolving identities in theoretically sound and productive ways.”—Carlton D. Floyd, associate professor of English at the University of San Diego

Author Information

Molly Littlewood McKibbin teaches in the English Department at Trent University (Ontario, Canada). She is the author of Rethinking Rachel Doležal and Transracial Theory.

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