Description: In Search of the Bllack Fantastic is the most authoritative work available on black culture in the post-Civil Rights era. Prior to the 1960s, when African Americans had little access to formal political power, popular culture functioned as a highly visible and important means of political expression. From Billie Holiday to Ralph Ellison, African American art was often explicitly political. Unexpectedly, though, despite the Civil Rights revolution of the 1960s that opened up the world of formal politics, black artists in film, literature, and music continue to have an outsized voice in black institutional politics. Marvin Gaye, George Clinton, Toni Morrison, Chuck D, Spike Lee, Tina Turner, Bill Jones, Lauren Hill, and many others speak to the power of this tradition. Richard Iton offers a comprehensive and novel portrait of this powerful and durable relationship, locating its modern roots in the Jazz Age and taking readers through the Hip Hop era.
Review Quotes: "A fascinating history and analysis of the nexus of black popular culture and activism from the Jazz Age to the hip-hop era...a timely reminder of the significant influence African American artists and entertainers have had on the political front--not necessarily in enacting laws, but in the symbolic impact of words and actions."--Los Angeles Times
"By interweaving many complex issues, In Search of the Black Fantastic moves across the disciplines with ease--politics, history, sociology, American studies, and African American studies--thereby representing one of the most thorough examinations of post-war black culture."--Political Science Quarterly"Iton's work possesses the depth of wide reading in modernist theory and the breadth of wide-open eyes and ears for the popular... challenging, illuminating and groundbreaking. For both lay reader and academician, it may well 'compel a revision of our notions of the political.'"--Publishers Weekly"A fresh, meticulously well researched study...The book is grounded in a solid historical base, surveying the dilemmas faced by black artists from the Cold War to the present...I strongly recommend In Search of the Black Fantastic to serious scholars of black literature and culture. By so perceptively engaging the relationship between popular art and the politics of marginalized people, it helps to clear the way to a truer, deeper understanding of an important subject which rarely gets such penetrating analysis."--African American Review"Brimming with ideas... [In Search of the Black Fantastic] offers thought-provoking insights throughout its 400 pages and will certainly stimulate further work in numerous areas of African American history." --American Historical Review"Iton has committed what many will see as a double professional sin. He has taken the vernacular cultures of black Atlantic people seriously and has used them to produce this deep and stimulating exploration of their political aspirations and achievements. There are exciting and challenging arguments on every single page of this tour de force."--Paul Gilroy, Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory, London School of Economics"Richard Iton's book is an impressive work of scholarship, combining dense analyses of black popular culture with rich insights rooted in political theory. It is a superb contribution to our understanding of the political importance of black popular culture."--Robert Gooding-Williams, Ralph and Mary Otis Isham Professor, University of Chicago"In Search of the Black Fantastic is a bold and thoroughly original exploration of the knotty relationship between politics and popular culture of the black diaspora during and after the civil rights era. In this learned, eloquent, and persuasively argued book, Richard Iton analyzes the transformative power of a stunning array of cultural forms."--Valerie Smith, Director, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University