The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy by Melvin Patrick Ely

The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy by Melvin Patrick Ely

Forty million Americans indulged in a national obsession in 1930: they eagerly tuned in Amos 'n' Andy, the nightly radio comedy in which a pair of white actors portrayed the adventures of two black men making a new life in the big city. Meanwhile, some angry African Americans demanded that Amos 'n' Andy be banned, even as others gathered in the barbershops and radio stores of Harlem to chuckle over the adventures of Amos, Andy, and the Kingfish. Melvin Patrick Ely unveils a fascinating tale of America's shifting color line, in which two professional directors of blackface minstrel shows manage to produce a serives so rich and complex that it wins admirers ranging from ultra-racists to outspoken racial egalitarians. Eventually, the pair stir further controversy when they bring their show to television. In a preface written especially for this new edition of his acclaimed classic, Ely shows how white and black responses to his Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy since 1991 tell a revealing story of their own about racial hopes and fears at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Compelling.. a stunningly objective look at the history of the program and how it affected, and was affected by, the culture at large....Remarkable. - Boston Globe; ""Amos 'n' Andy was an instant success, and went on to become both a national institution and a subject of racial controversy; Mr. Ely's sensitive and scholarly work shows us why."" - New Yorker; ""An engrossing, perhaps definitive, account of one of the most fascinating episodes in popular entertainment."" - Henry Louis Gates Jr.; ""Engaging....[Ely] does a brilliant job of sorting out what is in many ways a hellishly complex story....With exemplary scholarship and well-reasoned eloquence, he advances us a long way toward understanding, while also vividly revealing some unsettling aspects of our culture that shouldn't be forgotten."" - San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle; ""Painfully funny... ironic."" - Maureen Corrigan, ""Fresh Air,"" National Public Radio

Melvin Patrick Ely, a native of Richmond, Virginia, took undergraduate and graduate degrees in history at Princeton University, studied linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin, and served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies, University of Virginia. He has taught in public high schools in Virginia and Massachusetts, at Yale University, and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 1995 he has taught at the College of William and Mary, where he is currently Newton Family Professor of History and Black Studies. He is the author of The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon, and co-translator, with Naama Zahavi-Ely, of The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle, by Amotz and Avishag Zahavi.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9780813920924
ISBN 10	0813920922
Titel	The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy
Autor	Melvin Patrick Ely
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Paperback
Verlag	University of Virginia Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2001-10-29
Seitenanzahl	360
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.