With a poet's precision and an intellectually adventurous spirit,
Elizabeth Alexander explores a wide spectrum of contemporary African
American artistic life through literature, paintings, popular media, and
films, and discusses its place in current culture. In The Black
Interior, she examines the vital roles of such heavyweight literary
figures as Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, and Rita Dove, as well as
lesser known, yet vibrant, new creative voices. She offers a
reconsideration of afro-outré painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, the concept
of race-pride in Jet magazine, and her take on Denzel Washington's
career as a complex black male icon in a post-affirmative action era.
Also available is Alexander's much heralded essay on Rodney King, Emmett
Till, and the collective memory of racial violence.
Alexander, who has been a professor at the University of Chicago and
Smith College, and recently at Yale University, has taught and lectured
on African American art and culture across the country and abroad for
nearly two decades. In The Black Interior, she directs her scrupulous
poet's eye to the urgent cultural issues of the day. This lively
collection is a crucial volume for understanding current thinking on
race, art, and culture in America.