“I have sometimes met black who, as a condition of social acceptance, require me to prove my blackness by passing the Suffering Test.”
—from Adrian Piper's “Passing for White, Passing for Black”
TRANSITION 58: Table of Contents
POSITIONS____________________
Passing for White, Passing for Black
Whose race is it, anyway? Conceptual artist and philosopher
Adrian Piper explores
the intricacies of identity, hers and yours.
The More Things Change
Thirty years ago, filmmaker Robert
Gardner visited the remote “Stone
Age” Dani with his movie camera and gave them
a measure of celebrity. Now he returns to face the
consequences.
Apartheid on the Run
How the Springbok was laid low: Rob
Nixon on the ins and outs of South Africa's
sports boycott.
UNDER REVIEW____________________
A Prophet is Not Without Honor
Michael Thelwell on
James Baldwin's embattled legacy.
African Athena?
V.Y. Mudimbe
assesses Martin Bernal's controversial claims about
classical antiquity's brown roots.
C.L.R. James Misbound
Cultural critic or political theorist? Selwyn
Cudjoe weighs the anthologist's dilemma.
The Making of an African Cinema
Paul Willemen
on the institutional frames of the postcolonial film
noir.
The Closing Door
Preston Smith
on a case study of urban underdevelopment that challenges
liberal dogma.
White Mischief
Catherine Clinton
assays a new take on white women, racism, and empire.
Working Women
Are Americans really overworked? Ann
Bostrom is skeptical.
All in the Family
Bill Farrell on
the Civil War's new iconography.
CONVERSATION____________________
Nappy HappyRap artist Ice Cube and activist-academic Angela Y. Davis discuss race, responsibility, and rebellion.