{"product_id":"being-property-once-myself-blackness-and-the-end-of-man-9780674271166","title":"Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"This trenchant work of literary criticism examines the complex ways...African American authors have written about animals. In Bennett's analysis, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, and others subvert the racist comparisons that have 'been used against them as a tool of derision and denigration.'...An intense and illuminating reevaluation of black literature and Western thought.\" \u003cbr\u003e--Ron Charles, \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor much of American history, Black people have been conceived and legally defined as nonpersons, a subgenre of the human. In \u003ci\u003eBeing Property Once Myself\u003c\/i\u003e, prize-winning poet Joshua Bennett shows that Blackness has long acted as the caesura between human and nonhuman and delves into the literary imagination and ethical concerns that have emerged from this experience. Each chapter tracks a specific animal--the rat, the cock, the mule, the dog, the shark--in the works of Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Jesmyn Ward, and Robert Hayden. The plantation, the wilderness, the kitchenette overrun with pests, the valuation and sale of animals and enslaved people--all place Black and animal life in fraught proximity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Bennett suggests that animals are deployed to assert a theory of Black sociality and to combat dominant claims about the limits of personhood. And he turns to the Black radical tradition to challenge the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness in discourses surrounding the environment and animals. \u003ci\u003eBeing Property Once Myself\u003c\/i\u003e is an incisive work of literary criticism and a groundbreaking articulation of undertheorized notions of dehumanization and the Anthropocene. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A gripping work...Bennett's lyrical lilt in his sharp analyses makes for a thorough yet accessible read.\" \u003cbr\u003e--\u003ci\u003eLSE Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"These absorbing, deeply moving pages bring to life a newly reclaimed ethics.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Colin Dayan, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Law Is a White Dog\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Tremendously illuminating...Refreshing and field-defining.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Salamishah Tillet, author of \u003ci\u003eSites of Slavery\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBennett, Joshua:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Joshua Bennett is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eOwed\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Sobbing School\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the National Poetry Series and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. His writing has been published in \u003ci\u003eThe Best American Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eParis Review\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Belknap Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50862363869458,"sku":"9780674271166","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_5b1b36b4-5d8f-4849-b405-01a7671aea90.jpg?v=1737621872","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/being-property-once-myself-blackness-and-the-end-of-man-9780674271166","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}