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Making a Promised Land : Harlem in Twentieth-Century Photography and Film / Paula J. Massood.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©2013Description: 1 online resource (264 p.) : 31 photographsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780813555874
  • 9780813555898
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 974.7 974.7100904
LOC classification:
  • F128.68.H3 M37 2013
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- Introduction: The Era of the New Negro: African American Politics and Aesthetics in Twentieth-Century Harlem -- 1. African American Aesthetics and the City: Picturing the Black Bourgeoisie in New York -- 2. Heaven and Hell in Harlem: Urban Aesthetics for a Renaissance People -- 3. Delinquents in the Making: Harlem’s Representational Turn toward “Marketable Shock” -- 4. Gangster’s Paradise: Drugs and Crime in Harlem, from Blaxploitation to New Jack Cinema -- 5. Echoes of a Renaissance: Harlem’s Nostalgic Turn -- Conclusion: Making and Remaking a Promised Land: Harlem’s Continuing Revisions -- Notes -- INDEX
Summary: Making a Promised Land examines the interconnected histories of African American representation, urban life, and citizenship as documented in still and moving images of Harlem over the last century. Paula J. Massood analyzes how photography and film have been used over time to make African American culture visible to itself and to a wider audience and charts the ways in which the “Mecca of the New Negro” became a battleground in the struggle to define American politics, aesthetics, and citizenship. Visual media were first used as tools for uplift and education. With Harlem’s downturn in fortunes through the 1930s, narratives of black urban criminality became common in sociological tracts, photojournalism, and film. These narratives were particularly embodied in the gangster film, which was adapted to include stories of achievement, economic success, and, later in the century, a nostalgic return to the past. Among the films discussed are Fights of Nations (1907), Dark Manhattan (1937), The Cool World (1963), Black Caesar (1974), Malcolm X (1992), and American Gangster (2007). Massood asserts that the history of photography and film in Harlem provides the keys to understanding the neighborhood’s symbolic resonance in African American and American life, especially in light of recent urban redevelopment that has redefined many of its physical and demographic contours.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780813555898

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- Introduction: The Era of the New Negro: African American Politics and Aesthetics in Twentieth-Century Harlem -- 1. African American Aesthetics and the City: Picturing the Black Bourgeoisie in New York -- 2. Heaven and Hell in Harlem: Urban Aesthetics for a Renaissance People -- 3. Delinquents in the Making: Harlem’s Representational Turn toward “Marketable Shock” -- 4. Gangster’s Paradise: Drugs and Crime in Harlem, from Blaxploitation to New Jack Cinema -- 5. Echoes of a Renaissance: Harlem’s Nostalgic Turn -- Conclusion: Making and Remaking a Promised Land: Harlem’s Continuing Revisions -- Notes -- INDEX

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Making a Promised Land examines the interconnected histories of African American representation, urban life, and citizenship as documented in still and moving images of Harlem over the last century. Paula J. Massood analyzes how photography and film have been used over time to make African American culture visible to itself and to a wider audience and charts the ways in which the “Mecca of the New Negro” became a battleground in the struggle to define American politics, aesthetics, and citizenship. Visual media were first used as tools for uplift and education. With Harlem’s downturn in fortunes through the 1930s, narratives of black urban criminality became common in sociological tracts, photojournalism, and film. These narratives were particularly embodied in the gangster film, which was adapted to include stories of achievement, economic success, and, later in the century, a nostalgic return to the past. Among the films discussed are Fights of Nations (1907), Dark Manhattan (1937), The Cool World (1963), Black Caesar (1974), Malcolm X (1992), and American Gangster (2007). Massood asserts that the history of photography and film in Harlem provides the keys to understanding the neighborhood’s symbolic resonance in African American and American life, especially in light of recent urban redevelopment that has redefined many of its physical and demographic contours.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Jan 2023)